
'^^^'■"^-ywm^ 



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THE WANDERER; 



OR, 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 



G. DICKINSON, 

AUTHOR OF " POEMS AND ESSAYS. 



1 11 u s t r »t t e ii ♦ 



ILprjaoi /SovXrjv OeCjv avOpfsiTTOiaLv 
fit] fioL ToSc ^ojeo. 



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BOSTON: 
HENRY H. CLARK & CO., 77 KILBY STREET. 

188S. 




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COPVUIGHT, 1888, 

BY (t. DICKINSON. 



All rights reserved. 



I.IST OF ili.ustratio:n^s. 



Scottish Highlands Frontispiece 

AxTiQCE Gateway axd Sumpter-mule .... Vignette 

Byrox at 18 (Introduction) to face 2mge xi 

Warwick Castle (within the outer walls) 20 

QuEEX Elizabeth's Visit to Kexilworth .... 26 

The Ruins of Melrose Abbey 35 

Edinburgh Castle (from the Grassmarket) . . . . 41 ■ 

Queen Mary's Bedchamber 42 

Linlithgow Palace 45 

Stirling Castle (overlooking Bannockburn) . . . .40 

Loch Lo3iond C^h 

Xewstead Abbey 74 

Byron at 36 (see stanza cxxxviii) 96 

The Ruins of Kenilworth Castle (see Appendix) . . . 100 



PEEFATORY INTRODUCTION. 



TO the few who love me, — and to the very few whom I love, — the 
following poem (or first canto of what may yet become a com- 
pleted poem) is dedicated with feelings of sadness and regret by one 
who has had little fellowship with fellow-mortals, or ever looked upon 
their ways with ordinary eyes. Very many of the stanzas contained 
in this first canto were written in the earliest years of the author's 
life, without any definite idea of publication ; but rather for the pas- 
time or diversion of the hour, and as an embodiment of some of the 
sentiments and feelings that thrust themselves unbidden upon the 
mind. It was composed, for the most part, amid the scenes it in 
some degree describes, and during a solitary journey which it was the 
author's good — or bad — fortune to have made in very early life for 
the purposes of study and travel in foreign lands. If it may ever add 
one mental pleasure to the minds of those who may hereafter visit 
any of the sacred scenes described, or recall one hallowed memory to 
the souls of those who have already wandered over them ; or if it may 
be instrumental in refuting the cursed obloquy and unjust vitupera- 
tion that has been maliciously (or for purposes of self-aggrandizement 
and gain) cast upon the illustrious name of one of the world's greatest 
poets, by her who should have been engaged in charitable deeds, then 
will the author truly feel the ]Muse's aid was not invoked in vain. De 
inortuis nil nisi bonum, is an honorable sentiment which should be 
common to all human hearts ; but which seems never to have found 

iii 



iv PREFATORY INTRODUCTION, 

a resting-place in the ruthless breast of that heartless calumniator 
who, as if by divine justice, has long since fallen into " innocuous 
desuetude." From that honorable sentiment it grieves me much, in 
this case, to be forced, malgre ma volonte, to depart; for, as Mrs. 
Beecher Stowe said in her mendacious attack upon Lord Byron, 
" He belongs to the world for which he wrote, to which he appealed ; 
.... the world has, therefore, a right to judge him." So be it ! "I 
thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word ! " for by a parity of rea- 
soning, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and her brother Henry Ward Beecher, 
" belong to the world " ; and " the world has, therefore, a right to judge 
them." 

As Mrs. Stowe has set us the example of bringing to light and 
displaying to the public gaze every human error in the life and 
character of one " whose shoe-latchet she was not worthy to unloosen " ; 
and has thereunto added the most abominable charge that could be 
uttered, — a charge that has been shown, beyond the possibility of 
doubt, to be utterly baseless : having no foundation whatever, except 
it be in her own malicious and mendacious spirit,^ — she can have no 
right to complain, if, in defending the character of the illustrious dead, 
we draw the sword of justice and throw the useless scabbard to the 
winds. But, in what we shall have to say, we shall endeavor to con- 
fine ourselves strictly to what can be shown to be substantially true ; 



1 The Hon. Charles C. Hazewell, for a quarter of a century an editorial writer 
on the Traveller, speaking of iMrs. Stowe's book, in 1879, said : — 

"It is just ten years since Mrs. Beecher Stowe made her outrageous attack on Lord Byron, 
charging him with having had his half-sister [she said sister], Mrs. Augusta Leigh, for his mistress. 
The foul charge was speedily proved to be as baseless as it was base, though it is always a difficult 
task to prove a negative ; and now some letters have been discovered, the contents of which would 
have disposed of it completely, had it not been disposed of in 1869 favorably for the reputation of 
the author of ' Childe Harold.' The world regarded the attack with contempt, and it will not be 
displeased to see that its view of the matter has been justified by time. It is almost invariably just 
in its judgments, is the world, — to the dead." 

Mr. Hazewell was for several years a regular correspondent of the London 
Post, and was surpassed by none of his contemporaries, in this country or Europe, 
in ancient or modern historical knowledge. In fact, he was a walking encyclo- 
paedia of historical and biographical knowledge ; and knew the literature of the 
past and present as very few men have known it. 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. V 

■and to what numbers of undoubted living witnesses have attested by 
their public utterances, — as well as the published statements of many 
of the most reliable and well-known journals of the land. But we 
shall not, like Mrs. Stowe, resort to base fabrications and fallacious 
suppositions ; or seek, like her, to mislead and bias the reader's judg- 
ment by vague hints and innuendoes, or by half-concealed facts. In 
all of ]\Irs. Stowe's base and atrocious book concerning Lord EJyron 
she never once says that Mrs. Leigh was, at most, only his half-sister ; 
but she is careful to call her — and thereby give the impression to 
thousands who could not know better — his sister; whereas, in fact, 
she was at most only his half-sister, and quite probably not even that. 
As the mother of Mrs. Leigh was a woman who forsook her husband 
to elope with the father of Lord Byron, it is by no means certain that 
Mrs. Leigh was even the child of Lord Byron's father; and it is 
positively certain that she and Lord Byron were born of different 
mothers, — as Byron's father married Miss Gordon, who bore him 
Lord Byron, quite a while after the death of INIrs. Leigh's mother. 

But the fact is, Mrs. Stowe has never been considered at all reliable 
as to things historic : in proof of which I will here quote a few things 
which I take from the London Truth. That reliable journal said, 
speaking of " poor Mrs. Stowe," — 

" She has left us a lively account of her travels, which is marred ]iy being 
extremely inaccurate ! " 

The Duchess of Sutherland gave a party, to which Mrs. Stowe got 
herself invited. There she met, among others, the historian INIacau- 
lay, who shov^-ed her some little attention by conversing with her for 
a few^ moments : again I will quote from the London Truth : — 

"^Nlacaulay soon diverged on the subject of architecture, but the words put 
into his mouth by ]Mrs. Stowe [in her book] he utterly repudiated. He was 
especially indignant at having been made to say that several of the media?val 
cathedrals were built by companies of strolling masons. ' He had never uttered 
such nonsense.' 'Poor Mrs. Stowe' had characterized the nonsense as a 'glorious 
idea.' A few years later ^Macaulay expressed his intense disgust at hearing that 
Mrs. Stowe meditated another journey to England. He and several other men of 
letters were determined to show her the cold shoulder. 

" I think the dukes impressed 3Irs. Stowe even more than the authors of Great 



vi PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

Britain. Warwick castle especially struck the imagination of the New England 
pastor's wife, who seems to have fancied that the Grevilles descended from Earl 
Guy. The Lord Warwick of that day pleased her greatly, as did Lord Shaftes- 
bury ; but that goes without saying, as the French would phrase it." — Loudon 
Truth. 

" Poor Mrs. Stowe " seeiiLs to have been so completely bemuddled 
by any attention from a real live English lord or lady, that her poor 
wits entirely forsook her at once, and left her to make the most foolish 
statements and silly speeches. She says of Lady Byron, that " she 
was as well informed on all our matters as the best American states- 
man could be." But the most ecstatic moment of " poor Mrs. Stowe 's " 
life seems to have been when Lady Byron invited her and her son to 
visit her. Only the description of " poor Mrs. Stowe " can do justice 
to the occasion : you shall have it in her own glowing words ; les 
void ! — 

" There were a few persons present whom she thought I should be interested 
to know, — a Miss Goldsmith, daughter of i?rt?-oH Goldsmith, and Lord Ockham, 
her grandson, eldest son and heir of the Em-l of Lovelace, to whom she introduced 
my son.'" !!.... When all were engaged in talking, Lady Byron came and 
sat down by me, and, glancing across to Lord Ockham and ' my son,' who were 
talking together, she looked at me, and smiled " ! ! ! i 

Here for " poor Mrs. Stowe " was the climax of her earthly great- 
ness ! She could now write volumes of fulsome adulation and nause- 
ous flattery concerning Lady Byron. The London Times, speaking 
editorially, said : — 

" The perplexing feature in this ' True Story ' is, that it is impossible to distin- 
guish what part in it is the editress's and what Lady Byron's own. AVe are given 
the impressions made on Mrs. Stowe's mind by Lady Byron's statements ; but it 
would have been more satisfactory if the statement itself had been reproduced as 
bare as possible, and been left to make its own impression on the public." 

The fact is, any historical or biographical statements from the pen 
of " poor Mrs. Stowe " seem to be no more reliable than would be " an 
authentic account " — from her pen — of the golden apples, and the 
hundred-headed dragon which guarded them, in the Gardens of the 



The itahcs are mine, but the words are her own, — every letter of them. 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. vii 

Hesperides, — that is, her "authentic accounts" are generally mere 
fiction. She has, for instance, painted Lady Byron to us as a woman 
of the most perfect and sublime character; all-lovable, all-sufferings 
all-perfect, with a soul more pure and spotless than the reflex of the 
eternal Godhead in the soul of an angel; whereas, as Taine justly 
says,— 

" He [Byron] found that his wife was a kind of paragon of virtue, known a» 
such, ' a creature of rule,' correct and without feelings, incapable of committing 
a fault herself, or of forgiving. His servant Fletcher observed, ' It is very odd, 
but I never yet knew a lady that could not manage my Lord except my Lady.' 
Lady Byron thought her husband mad, and had him examined by physicians. 
Having learned that he was in his right mind, she left him, returned to her father, 
and refused ever to see him again." — Taine's History of English Literature. 

Mrs. Stowe, in "' her outrageous attack on Lord Byron," has suc- 
ceeded in proving nothing, excepting that Lord Byron did not commit 
the crime she cdtempted to fasten upon him. For no candid and intelli- 
gent man can read her book carefully without coming to that conclu- 
sion. She has glorified Lady Byron with all the bombastic and windy 
phraseology at her command. And she has vilified Lord Byron, and 
Moore, and Scott, and Prof. Wilson, and other great literary men of 
those days, with all the billingsgate and foul epithets of her own 
recondite and peculiar vocabulary, — saying that "Moore's vice is 
cautious, soft, seductive, slippery, and covered at times with a thin, 
tremulous veil of religious sentimentalism " : that he "was a man of 
no particular nicety as to moralities, but in that matter seems not 
very much below what this record shows his average associates to be." 
The meetings of those literary gentlemen she terms " the assemblies 
of drunkards." AYitli such sweet epithets and phrases she has em- 
balmed the names of all the literary men of those times who dared 
to love and praise Lord Byron. Concerning ^Nlrs. Stowe's book. Lord 
Lindsay wrote to the London Times, saying : — 

" I have waited in expectation of a categorical denial of the horrible charge 
brought by Mrs. Beecher .Stowe against Lord Byron and his half-sister on the 
alleged authority of the late Lady Byron. Such denial has been only indirectly 
given by the letter of Messrs. Wharton and Fords in your impression of yesterday. 
That letter is sufficient to prove that Lady Byron never contemplated the use 
made of her name, and that her descendants and representatives disclaim all 



Tiii PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

countenance of Mrs. Beecher Stowe's article My object in addressing you 

is to supply that deficiency by proving that what is now stated on Lady Byron's 
supposerl authority is at variance, in all respects, with what she stated innnediately 
iifter the separation I publish this evidence with reluctance, but in obedi- 
ence to that higher obligation of justice to the voiceless and defenceless dead 
which bids me break through a reserve that otherwise I should have held sacred. 
The Lady Byron of 1818 would, I am certain, have sanctioned my doing so, had 
she foreseen the present unparalleled occasion, and the bar that the conditions 
of her will present (as I infer from Messrs. Wharton and Fords' letter) against 
any fuller communication." 

Notwithstanding all of ]Mrs. Stowe's special pleading and menda- 
cious assertions, she could prove nothing against Lord Byron that 
was not already known and frankly acknowledged. He had his errors 
like all other men; and, in the inexperience of youth, and with the 
romantic bravado of a poetical temperament, he often paraded them 
unwisely before the eyes of his enemies, who were quick to take a 
mean advantage of his unwary self-accusations. He was no hypocrite, 
at least, pretending to be a Christian teacher the better to hide impure 
practices from the eyes of men. If he indulged in some libertinism 
during his wild and extravagant youth, — and in that age and country 
where it was tolerated and winked at by the noblest of the land, — it 
was a libertinism that was not hypocritically hidden from the world 
by specious lies and assumed virtue ; but, on the contrary, was half 
atoned for by being often acknowledged; sometimes with levity, 
perhaps, but oftener with sincere contrition and a manly resolve to 
reform it with the advent of his maturer years. And no hero of the 
world ever gave the energies of his mature years to a nobler cause 
than that in which Lord Byron was engaged, when an untimely death 
deprived the struggling Greeks of his wise counsels and his generous 
•aid, and plunged all Greece in mourning for his loss. 

" He is now at rest ; 
And praise and blame fall on his ear alike. 
Now dull in death. Yes, Byron, thou art gone! 
Gone like a star that through the firmament 
Shot and was lost, in its eccentric course 
Dazzling, perplexing. Yet thy heart, methinks, 
Was generoiis, nolle, — noble in its scorn 
Of all things low or little ; nothing there 



PEE FA TORY INTRODUCTION. ix 

Sordid or servile. If imagined wrongs 
Pursued thee, urging thee sometimes to do 
Things long regretted, oft, as many know. 
None more than I, thy gratitude %yould build 
On slight foundations ; and if in thy life 
Not happy, in thy death thou surely wert, 
Thy wish accomplished ; dying in the lantl 
Where thy young mind had caught ethereal fii-e, 
Dying in Greece, and in a cause so glorious! 

"They in thy train, — ah, little did they think, 
As round we went, that they so soon should sit 
Mourning beside thee, while a Nation mourned ; 
Changing her festal for her funeral song ; 
That they so soon should hear the minute-gun. 
As morning gleamed on what remained of thee. 
Roll o'er the sea, the mountains, nimibering 
Thy years of joy and sorrow. 

" Thou art gone, 
And he irho tcould assail thee in thy grave, 
Oh, let him 2)ause.' For who among us all, 
Tried as thou wert, even from thy earliest years, 
When wandering, yet unspoilt, a highland boy, — 
Tried as thou wert, and with thy soul of flame ; 
Pleasure, while yet the down was on thy cheek, 
Uplifting, pressing, and to lips like thine, 
Her charmed cup, — ah, who among us all 
Could say he had not erred as much, and more?" 

Never, in all the annals of literature, ^Yas a great genius so base- 
lessly and basely vilified as was Lord Byron by Mrs. Stowe. The 
whole literary world was shocked and outraged by her most heinous 
attack ; and the public press so belabored her for it that she herself 
said,— 

" I was at first astonished and incredulous at what I heard of the course of the 
American press, and was silent, not merely from the impossibility of being heard, 
but from grief and shame." 

And well she might be ; for she has done more than all others ta 
disgrace and stultify the name and character of Lady Byron. Her 
" True Story ; or. Lady Byron Vindicated," was so palpably malicious 
on the face of it, and so opposed to the known facts, and to the beliefs 
of all the men of Byron's own time, and asserted so many falsehoods 
that even his worst enemies had never dared or thought of alleging 



X PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

during his lifetime (wlien all the acts of his life were scrutinized with 
malicious intent), that all the world at once discredited it. More than 
all this : Mrs. Stowe's " True Story " is so inconsistent, when dissected, 
and the different statements compared with each other, that her 
wliole base and baseless tirade becomes disintegrated and resolves 
itself into a heap of most flagrant and most malicious tittle-tattle. 
There are so many inconsistencies, that it would require too much 
space to expose the half of them. 

But there is one important false statement that ought not to pass 
unexposed and uncondemned. Mrs. Stowe asserts that Byron's 
agitation during the ceremony of his marriage to Miss Millbank was 
caused by his recollections, at that hour, of a guilty passion for 
another, and gives the reader to understand that it was for his half- 
sister. In so asserting, Mrs. Stowe herself is guilty of a bold and 
barefaced lie, — as we will proceed to prove by the very evidence 
which she herself cites. Here are Mrs. Stowe's words • — 

"There is no reason to doubt that Byron was, as he relates in his ^ Dream' 
profoundly agonized and agitated when he stood before God's altar with the 
trusting yomig creature whom he was leading to a fate so awfully tragic ; yet it 
was not the memory of Mary Chaworth, but another guiltier and more danming 
memory, which overshadowed that hour." 

Mrs. Stowe is here guilty of a villanous attempt to suborn the 
evidence (if I may use the term). As Mrs. Stowe never in her life 
saw or knew Lord Byron (and his " state is the more gracious " for 
that!) she could not possibly know what his secret thoughts might 
have been at any given time, excepting as she gathered them from 
his written words ; now, I will quote his written words, verbatim, 
concerning the transactions referred to by jNIrs. Stowe ; and no truth- 
ful construction can possibly make them refer to any other per.^on 
than Miss ^Nlary Chaworth, Byron's early and dearest lady-love : — 

"I saw two beings in the hues of youth 
Standing upon a hill. — a gentle hill, 
Green and of mild declivity, the last 
As 't were the cape of a long ridge of such, 
Save that there was no sea to lave its base, 
But a most living landscape, and the wave 



,2?^:^ 




BYRON AT 18. See page xi. 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. XI 

Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men 
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke 
Arising from such rustic roofs ; . . . . 

These two, a maiden and a youth, were there 

Gazing, — the one on all that was beneath, 

Fau- as herself, —but the boy gazed on her; 

And both were young, and one was beautiful ; 

And both were young, yet not alike in youth. 

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge. 

The maid was on the eve of womanhood ; 

The boy had fewer summers, but his heart 

Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye 

There was but one beloved face on earth. 

And that was shining on him ; he had looked 

Upon it till it could not pass away ; 

He had no breath, no being, but in hers ; 

She was his voice ; he did not speak to her, 

But trembled on her words ; she was his sight. 

For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers, 

"Which colored all his objects ; — he had ceased 

To live within himself ; she was his life. 

The ocean to the river of his thoughts, 

"Which terminated all ; upon a tone, 

A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, 

And his cheek change tempestuously, — his heart 

Unknowing of its cause of agony. 

But she in these fond feelings had no share : 

Her sighs were not for him ; to her he was 

Even as a brother — but no more ; 't was much, 

For brotherless she was, save in the name 

Her infant friendship had bestowed on him ; 

Herself the solitari/ scion left 

Of a time-honored race. It was a name 

"Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not, — and why? 

Time taught him a deep answer — when she loved 

Another ; even now she loved another, 

And on the summit of that hill she stood 

Looking afar if yet her lover's steed 

Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. 

" A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 
There was an ancient mansion, and before 
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned ; 
"Within an antique oratory stood 
The boy of whom I spake ; — he was alone, 



xii PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

And pale, and pacing to and fro ; anon 

He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced 

Words which I could not guess of ; then he leaned 

His bowed head on his hands, and shook as t were 

With a convulsion, — then arose again. 

And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear 

What he had written, but he shed no tears. 

And he did calm himself, and fix his brow 

Into a kind of quiet ; as he paused, 

The lady of his love re-entered there ; 

She was serene and smiling then, and yet 

She knew she was by him beloved, — she knew, 

For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart 

Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw 

That he was wretched, but she saw not all. 

He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp 

He took her hand ; a moment o'er his face 

A tablet of unutterable thoughts 

Was traced, and then it faded as it came ; 

He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps 

Retired, but not as bidding her adieu. 

For they did part with mutual smiles ; he passed 

From out the massy gate of that old hall, 

And mounting on his steed he went his way. 

And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more. 

"A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. 
The wanderer was returned. I saw him stand 
Before an altar — with a gentle bride ; 
Her face was fair, but was not that which made 
The star-light of his boyhood ; — as he stood 
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came 
The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock 
That in the antique oratory shook 
His bosom in its solitude ; and then. 
As in that hour, a moment o'er his face 
The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
Was traced, — and then it faded as it came, 
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke 
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words. 
And all things reeled around him ; he could see 
Not that which was, nor that which should have been, 
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall, 
And the remembered chambers, and the place. 
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, 
All things pertaining to that place and hour. 



PEE FA TORY INTRODUCTION: xiii 

And her loho was his destiny came back, 

And thrust themselves beticeen him and the light: 

What business had they there at such a time?" 

This all, as is well known, relates to Lord Byron's love affair with, 
and parting from, Miss Chaworth ere he began his foreign travels, 
and to his own marriage, after his return, with ]Miss Millbank. Miss 
Chaworth did not reciprocate his love, hut refused him, and after- 
wards married another; a fact that cast a gloomy shade over his 
after-life, as all well know. And when " he stood before God's altar 
with the trusting young creature " (as INIrs. Stowe so pathetically 
relates), and " heard not his own words," it was the memory of Mary 
Chaworth and his parting from her that came back to him, — as he 
distinctly declares. It cannot be any one else ; for he leaves no room 
for doubt, but says : — 

"Even at the altar, o"er his brow thei'e came 
The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock 
That in the antique oratory shook 
His bosom in its solitude ; and then. 
As in that hour, a moment o'er his face 
The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
Was traced ; .... 

he could see 
Xot that which was, nor that which should have been, — 
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall, 
And the remembered chambers, and the place, 
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade, 
All things pertaining to that place and hour. 
And her who was his destiny came back."'' 

There can be no possibility of doubt; for Mary Chaworth is the 

only one that at all answers to the description. She was an only 

child as he distinctly described her to us, — 

"Herself the solitary scion left 
Of a time-honored race." 

That one declaration forever bars his own half-sister from the 
scene ! Again, all other portions of identification are equally con- 
clusive in giving Mrs. Stowe the lie. Never was such a barefaced 
imposition attempted to be palmed upon the reading public. Never 
did one recoil with greater force upon the inventor. Lord Byron's 



XIV PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

unhappy love for Miss Chawortli is of world-wide faiiiy His 

" Dream " is his own acknowledged account of it. All his biographers 

are agreed upon it. Here is the story as told by one ot tnem (not 

Moore, whom Mrs. Stowe so heartily detests) : — 

" Byron, whilst living at Kewstead during the Harrow vacation, saw and be- 
came enamored of Miss Chaworth ; she is the Mary of his iioetry, and his beauti- 
ful 'Dream' relates to their loves. Miss Chaworth was older than his lordship 
by a few years,— was light and volatile, and though, no doubt, highly flattered by 
his attachment, yet she treated our poet less as an ardent lover than as a younger 
brother. She was punctual to the assignations which took place at a gate dividing 
the grounds of the Byrons from the Chaworths, and accepted his letters from the 
confidants ; but her answers, it is said, were written with more of the caution of 
coquetry than the romance of ' love's young dream ' ; she gave him, however, her 
picture, but her hand was reserved for another It was eomewhat remark- 
able that Lord Byron and Miss Chaworth should have been under the guardianship 
of Mr. White. This gentleman particularly wished that his wards should be 
married together ; but Miss C, as yoiuig ladies generally do in such circumstances, 
differed from him, and was resolved to please herself in the choice of a husband. 
The celebrated Mr. M., commonly known by the name of Jack M.,i was at this 



1 The " Mr. M." here referred to was Mr. John Musters, to whom Miss Cha- 
worth was married in 1805. But the marriage did not prove to be a happy one, 
and soon 

"Upon her face there was the tint of grief, 
The settled shadow of an inward strife, 
And an unquiet drooping of the eye, 
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears." 

Byron had met Miss Chaworth some two years before. Moore says : — 
"It was in the year 1803 that his heart, already twice, as we have seen, possessed with a childish 
notion that he loved, conceived an attachment which, — young as he was, even then, for sucli a 

feeling, —sunk so deep into his mind as to give a color to all his future life Six short 

summer weeks which he now passed in her company being sufficient to lay the foundation of a 
feeling for life." 

This " dream of his youth" ended with his summer vacation ; and he saw Miss 
Chaworth but once more, hi the following year, when he took a final farewell of 
her on that hill near Annesley, 

" Crowned with a peculiar diadem 
Of trees, in circular array," 
as he related in " The Dream." When told afterwards that Miss Chaworth was 
married, "an expression very peculiar, impossible to describe, passed over his 
pale face." " And then it faded as it came." 

Once after her marriage he saw her, and it was for the last time on earth. She 
was then a mother ; and when he saw her little daughter brought into the room, 
" he started involuntarily, — it was with the utmost difficulty he could conceal his 
emotion." Mrs. Stowe would probably say it was 'on account of his guilty love 
for his sister.' That would be in accordance with her other lies concerning him. 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. xv 

time quite the rage, and Miss Chaworth was not subtle enough to conceal the 
penchant she had for this yAck-a-dandij ; and though ]Mr. White took her from 
one watering-place to another, still the lover, like an evil spirit, followed, and at 
last, being somehow more persuasive than the ' child of song,' he carried off the 
lady to the great grief of Lord Byron. The marriage, however, was not a happy 
one ; the parties soon separated, and 31rs. M. afterwards proposed an interview 
with her former lover, which, by the advice of his half-sister, he declined." 

Near the close of his poem, "The Dream," Byron thus traces out 
the after-fate of Miss Chaworth, in lines whose mournful cadences 
and melancholy beauty have rarely been excelled and very seldom 
equalled : — 

•'The lady of his love, — O she was changed 
As by the sickness of the soul ! her mind 
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes, 
They had not their own lustre, biit the look 
Which is not of the earth ; she was become 
The queen of a fantastic realm ; her thoughts 
Were combinations of disjointed things ; 
And forms, impalpable and unperceived 
Of others' sight, familiar were to hers. 
And this the world calls frenzy ; but the wise 
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance 
Of melancholy is a fearful gift!" 

And that "fearful gift," "the glance of melancholy," was peculiarly 

the after-inheritance of Lord Byron. And it was in obedience to the 

viewless spirit of that melancholy, that, even at the altar, — 

"O'er his face 
The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
Was traced." 

And the viewless spirit of that melancholy pervaded all his after- 
life, and left its traces in his glowing stanzas ; lending to his k'fty 
strains a mournful and touching under-tone of sadness, that reaches 
and thrills the human heart and soul as the poetry of few other 
bards has ever done. All this Mrs. Stowe knew, or ought to have 
known, perfectly well ! Therefore she was grossly ignorant, or else 
she is a most malicious falsifier! 

If any further evidence of the contempt in which the world holds 
Mrs. Stowe and her most scandalous book were needed, it could be 
furnished in abundance. The Hon. George Otto Trevelyan, :\I. P., 
thus speaks of her in his 'Life' of Lord Macaulay: — 



xvi PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

"In the spring of 1853 the expectation of Mrs. Beecher Stowe's visit to England 
created some apprehension in the minds of tliose eminent men who were pretty 
sure to come within the circuit of her observation, and quite sure to find them- 
selves in her book of travels." 

Macaulay was in the habit of writing down in a diary his impress 
sions of persons and daily occnrrences. Under date of Marcli IG, 
1853, lie wrote as follows : — 

" To dinner, after a long interval, at Westbourne Terrace. Gladstone, Lord 
Glenelg, and Goulburn. There was much laughing about Mrs. Beecher Stowe, 
and what we were to give her. I referred the ladies to Goldsmith's poems for 
what I should give her. Nobody but Hannah understood me ; but some of them 
have since been thumbing Goldsmith to make out the riddle." 

A year later, after INIacaulay had seen and read all the twaddle 
that Mrs. Stowe attribnted to him, he wrote, in jnst indignation, as 
follows : — 

" A mighty foolish, impertinent book this of Mrs. Stowe's. She puts into my 
mouth a great deal of stuff that I never uttered, particularly about Cathedrals. 
AVhat blunders she makes ! Robert AValpole for Horace AValpole. Shaftesbury, 
the author of the Habeas Corpiis Act, she confounds with Shaftesbury, the author 
of the Characteristics. She cannot even see. Palmerston, whose eyes are sky- 
blue, she calls dark-eyed. / am glad that I met her so seldom, and sorry that I 
met her at all!" 

What Mrs. Stowe wrote in her book concerning her interview with 
Macanlaj^ was, as nsnal with her written reports of other people's 
conversations, " extremely inaccurate." JNIacaulay was hugely dis- 
gusted when he afterwards read it. He openly declared that it was 
nothing like what he said: "he had never uttered such nonsense." 
Mrs. Stowe reported her coiiversation with him as follows: — 

"He made some suggestive remarks on cathedrals generally. I said that I 
thought that we so seldom know who were the architects that designed these 
great buildings ; that they appeared to me the most sublime efforts of human 
genius He [Macaulay] said that all the cathedrals of Europe were un- 
doubtedly the result of one or two minds ; that they rose into existence very nearly 
contemporaneously, and were built by travelling companies of masons, under the 
direction of some systematic organization. Perhaps [adds Mrs. Stowe] you knew 
all this before, but I did not ; and so it struck me as a glorious idea; and if it 
is not the true account of the origin of cathedrals, it certainly ought to he ; and, 
as our old grandmother used to say, '7'm going to believe it!^" — Trevelyan's 
Life of Macaulay. 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTIOX. xvii 

Now Macaulay had really said no such things ; and he was exceed- 
ingly disgusted with Mrs. Stowe when he came to learn what nonsense 
she had reported as his sayings. Macaulay's biographer says of it : — 

" It certainly would be diflBcult even to manufacture a less adequate represen- 
tation than this of Macaulay"s talk, either as regarded manner or matter. But 
Mrs. Beecher Stowe has unfortunately shown herself only too ready to rush into 
print when she has lighted upon what she conceives to be curious information 
about the private life of a great English author." 

Here is the undoubted testimony, given in the very words of most 
eminent men, as to the itntruthfulness of Mrs. Stowe's reports of 
the sayings and doings of the world's great authors. By such evi- 
dence it is made certain, beyond the possibility of doubt, that her 
reports of Lady Byron's conversations are equally distorted mis- 
representations, and probably much more distorted even ; as a nmch 
longer time had elapsed between the hearing and reporting of them ; 
and in that lapse of time the bemuddled wits of Mrs. Stowe went 
sailing round the land in fruitless wool-gathering. 

In corroboration of the justly severe sentiments of the text, I have 
adduced, from time to time, in numerous foot-notes, the public utter- 
ances and published statements of many eminent persons and reliable 
public journals to the same effect. As for Mrs. Stowe, having cited 
so much evidence of the very highest character as to her utter worth- 
lessness as a chronicler or historian, I now leave her to the unwhole- 
someness of her own unhappy reflections ; and to suffer in secret 
the condemnation of a justly incensed and outraged public sentiment ; 
and I recommend her to reflect well upon that beautiful passage of 
Divine utterance which saith : " With what judgment ye judge ye 
shall be judged ; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured 
to you again." 

In some stanzas of the following poem I have depicted what I be- 
lieve to be the true character and status of Mrs. Stowe's brother, 
the Kev. Henry Ward Beecher ; and I have, in the accompanying 
foot-notes, cited the public utterances of many eminent men and 
public journals in verification of the opinions and declarations 
uttered in the text. In addition to what is stated in the body of the 



xviii PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

work, loquar pauca pro re. Whoever may take up the pen to write 

concerning Mr. Beecher and his performances, — if he be a person 

of truthfabiess, and at the same time feels his truthfuhiess o'ershad- 

owed by the pleading form of Mercy, — will find he has a painful and 

diificult task before him to perform. For, let Mercy plead never so 

earnestly, the writer must feel, at every step, that in his character of 

truth-teller he owes the world a stern and sacred duty. Therefore 

it is imperative upon him that, in spite of Mercy's pleading voice, he 

must and should of right speak out the truth. 

Notwithstanding the fact that it is quite fashionable now to raise 

a general psean of praise in Mr. Beecher's honor, and for all to 

exert their lungs to the utmost, so as to drown all echoes of his past 

misdeeds and immoralities, — echoes that will from time to time 

reverberate adown the vista of departed years, 

" Like the cloudy groan 
Of dying thunder on the distant wind," — 

yet there are some honorable people left to whom the odor of dishonor 
is not an agreeable perfume ; and who, consequently, may choose to 
remain silent for the present, to allow the din " of sounding brass 
and tinkling cymbals" to die away before they take it upon them- 
selves to utter forth the stern and solemn truths that must eventually 
be told of him. They most surely " bide their time." But there will 
come a day when they, too, will open their mouths to speak out the 
stern and terrible truths which, though unpalatable, will yet be listened 
to and recognized as undeniable fact. Magna est Veritas et praevalebit ! 
and the Rev. Dr. Fairfield of Ohio spoke with the voice of prophecy 
when he said, — 

" There are men in Mansfield who will live to confess to me the folly of their 
words and deeds, simply because they did not know what I knew. And when 
they come to know, as they will, they will read what I have written and published, 
and wonder only that I wrote so calmly and moderately of one who will be 
ultimately and universally conceded to be the most infamous character of the 
nineteenth century." 

Indeed, it cannot be but that the name of Mr. Beecher will descend 
to posterity blackened by the stains of infamy and shame. For years 
past it has been a byword and a mockery, until it is enough to say 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. xix 

of any one that is . suspected of great immoral practices, " O, he is 
another Henry Ward Beecher!" His name has filled the land, for 
years now, with a moral malaria ; it has long been suggestive of im- 
morality and sin.i As the (N. Y.) Nation said in noticing his death : 

" His faults, like his virtues, were very conspicuous, and everybody heard 
enoiigh of them in his lifetime." — Xafion, Xo. 1132. 

Never was such severe condemnation meted out to a dying clergy- 
man as Mr. Beecher received, while on his death-bed, from the regular 
weekly meeting of Congregational ministers in Chicago ; when, refus- 
ing to send a message of condolence to the dying man, " one minister 
stated in bold terms that he would not extend sympathy to a man 
who was charged with immorality, and had never cleared himself of 
the charge. He said he doubted that Mr. Beecher had established 
his innocence of the offence of which he was accused by Theodore 
Tilton." 

Among others who opposed the resolution of condolence was the 
Rev. E. P. Goodwin, who, while opposing, made use of these signifi- 
cant expressions : — 

" ]Mr. Beeeher's brother is a member of my church, and many facts have come 
into my family. I know too much !" 

Considering the source and weight of all these utterances, are we 
not compelled, even in spite of our better wishes, to believe, beyond 



1 In strong corroboration of these facts, I will cite an extract from the letter 
of Archbishop Corrigan to the Rev. Dr. McGlynn, as it appeared in the public 
journals. The letter, dated March 15, 188G, says : — 

" The bishop of Brooklyn has called direct attention to the enclosed circular, in which j-oii 
are announced to speak at a meeting presided over by Henry Ward Beecher. As the meeting is 
to be held in his diocese, the bishop objects vehemently to a Catholic priest publicly appearing 
in such company, inasmuch as he conceives that great dissatisfaction and scandal will be the 
result. At his request I make his views known to J'ou, and I am forced to say that I, too, would 
feel humiliated to find a priest of the arch-diocese openly associating with a man of such 
unhappy reputation as Mr. Beecher." 

Can the English language convey any stronger condemnation than this? And, 
considering the eminent source from which it comes, can the damning moral 
stain that it affixes be ever washed awav? 



XX PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

a doubt, that the (N. Y.) Sun uttered nothing more than the ever-to-be- 
lamented truth when it said : — 

"Henry Ward Beeclier is an adulterer, perjurer, and fraud, and his great 
genius and his Christian pretences only make his sin the more horrible and revolt- 
ing." 

Such were the words of the Sun, as quoted in tlie Boston Traveller 
in 1878, when Mrs. Tilton gave her final and truthful confession to the 
world. All good men — none more than the writer of this — have 
always hoped that, in some way, INIr. Beecher might be able to clear 
himself of the crimes that were charged to his account. But that, 
it now seems, he has never been able to do. And now his life-account 
is closed forever, and his earthly record is completed beyond recall. 

Therefore his name must go down to posterity covered and weighted 
by the apparent load of guilt that now rests upon it, and must of 
necessity rest upon it for all coming time. No doubt but that his 
biographers will do all that is possible for human ingenuity to do, 
to bridge over and hide the unhappy passages in his darkly immoral 
conduct. It is already announced that his personal friends and the 
members of his own family are to prepare the " only authorized 
biography" that is to be given to the world. They without doubt 
will condone, or leave out entirely, the dark and noted charges 
that rest upon his name and fame, rendering him the most unenvia- 
bly notorious clergyman of his time. But the account will assuredly 
not be received as the true story of his life. It will only be " a 
whitened sepulchre" at best; and can but fail to hide the shock- 
ing corruption that it would conceal. They of course will never 
stop short of apotheosis in his praise. But the world at large will 
forever believe in his moral blackness and guilt. And even they, 
while pouring forth their fulsome and false praises, must feel and 
know that the world at large is thoroughly convinced of his great 
errors and guilty immoralities. Therefore it would be more honest, 
and far better, to acknowledge them most frankly, and ask an indul- 
gent public to forgive them freely, now that he is gone. There will 
surely come a time when his character will be analyzed with impartial 
criticism, and with little prejudice based upon either sympathy or 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. xxi 

antipathy ; and all the fulsome flattery and mendacious eulogy of 
his over-zealous relatives and friends will only serve to injure him 
in the end; for most assuredly there will arise a pen to prick the 
o'erblown bubble of false praise, and write an un-" authorized," but 
wholly truthful, biography of the notoriously immoral preacher. 
Already the over-laudatory sketches of his life that have appeared 
are being severely but justly criticised ; witness the following, Avhich 
appeared in the Saturday Review (and from that paper copied into the 
Sunckuj Herald), condemnatory of Lyman Abbott's over-laudatory 
biography of Mr. Beecher. I cite the article verbatim, as it appeared 
in the Herald : — 

'• The real ti-utli about Mr. Beecher might be told in a very few words ; but, 
with one or two doubtful exceptions, none of these words are to be found in the 
volume before us, says the Saturday lieview, concerning Lyman Abbott's sketch 
of the Plymouth Church pastor. A stump orator of the pulpit, a leading member 
of that school of American preachers who, like some notorious Nonconformist 
pastors in this country, are politicians first, sectarians in the second place, and 
Christians at best in the third, Mr. Beecher has the virtues and the faults — both 
feminine rather than masculine — of the school of emotional declaimers to which 
he beloiigs. His sympathy is only less ready and less vehement than his hatred, 
and neither is directed by knowledge, nor is the latter ever controlled by anything 
deserving the name of Christian charity. A punster in the pulpit, a fanatic on 
the platform, launching constantly into coarse abuse, indulging in a sort of humor 
more offensive to English than to American taste, he is undoubtedly a successful 
man, but his success is much the same in kind as that of ' Gen.' Booth or of Messrs. 
Moody and Sanky. He appeals to the same sort of ignorant, ill-regulated emotion, 
takes the same pains to vulgarize religion and bring his preaching down to the level 
of the most numerous congregation he can collect, instead of striving to raise their 
minds to a higher and nobler standard. Of his harangues in England during the 
civil war ]Mr. Beecher was, it seems, inordinately vain, and he was furious at the 
attacks they called forth, — attacks occasionally vulgar and offensive, no doubt, 
but in no case more objectionable than his own habitual language. It is charac- 
teristic that the Liverpool placards of which Dr. Abbott bitterly complains consist 
chiefly of extracts from Mr. Beecher's own speeches and sermons, — language 
which, were not Englishmen much more tolerant than their transatlantic kinsmen, 
would have insured him a far stormier reception than, even in the town most 
distinguished for its Southern leanings, he actually received. He was hooted by 
a part of his audience ; an American assemblage, under the like provocation, 
would have emphasized its disapproval with missiles heavier than rude taunts 
and awkward questions. Both the orator and his panegyrist display in one pas- 
sage a striking and almost incredible ignorance of English customs and character, 
affirming that at the Liverpool meeting his opponents came armed with revolvers 



XXll PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

and bowie-knives, and that some of his partisans threatened them with similar 
weapons. Tliere can hardly be any foundation even for the latter statement ; as 
we do not remember that any of Mr. Beecher's friends were handed over to the 
police, or, if arrested, were visited with the very heavy sentences which such an 
offence would have received from an English court. Mr. Beecher's abolitionism 
may have been as earnest and courageous as Dr. Abbott proclaims it ; one thing- 
is certain, that he rendered no service to the cause he espoused. As violent as 
Wendell Phillips, he did not, like that distinguished champion of humanity, 
almost atone for the virulence of his abuse by prolonged labors and personal 
perils of the gravest kind incurred in the good cause ; nor did he, like Garrison, 
give a life of patient, steadfast, devoted work, under every possible discourage- 
ment, to a purpose which even those who thought it mistaken could not deny to 
be noble. He was one of those whose language only served to discredit his cause 
with thoughtful and temperate men. He contributed to inflame beyond control 
the angry passions on both sides which precipitated civil war ; but he certainly 
rendered no other help to the cause of emancipation." 

To the foregoing truthful estimate of Mr. Beecher it can with equal 
truthfulness be added, that he also rendered no help to the cause of 
religion or morality ; but, on the contrary, he more than any other 
man of his time, — or perhaps of all time, — brought disgrace and dis- 
repute upon the character of the Christian pulpit, and, by his own 
unfortunate and notorious walk in life, he filled the moral atmosphere 
of the whole land with an unwholesome taint, that will forever be 
associated with his name, to render it, not famous, but notorious for 
all time to come. He seems to have drifted, during his vigorous years, 
from the upright standards of theology, religion, and morality, into the 
broad sea of evolution and free-love ; and out of his own utterances 
and letters to his brother and sister — not intended for the public eye 
— he stands convicted; and out of the utterances of their letters to 
him — also not intended for the public eye — his conviction will stand 
confirmed before the impartial judgment of the world for all time to 
come. As the Times truthfully said, in 1878, at the time of Mrs. 
Tilton's final confession, — 

" As for Mr. Beecher, he remains the impure and perjured man which any 
rational construction of his own letters proved him to be. That fact deijrives 
Mr. Beecher's rejoinder to Mrs. Tilton's latest confession of any title to con- 
sideration. It lends, however, to every fresh protest of his against the justice 
of retribution which he has earned, the terrible emphasis of persistent hypocrisy 
and falsehood." 



PREFATORY IXTROBUCTION. xxiii 

Never before has the world witnessed the spectacle of a Christian 
minister persisting in preaching the gospel for years after being 
charged with such odious crimes and immoralities which he could 
not possibly disprove. Well might the Times exclaim, when com- 
menting upon his guilt, — 

" It can hai-clly fail to deepen the mdignation with which those convinced of 
Mr. Beecher's guilt regard the spectacle of the gospel of truth and purity being 
expounded by one who has so flagrantly defied its precepts." 

But Mr. Beecher was a man of brazen-faced assurance ; indeed, he 
even had a strong sprinkling of the bully in his make-up. Even 
Judge Van Cott, counsel for Mrs. Moulton, gave him the credit of 
being something of a bully. He said : 

" That if a minister of the Gospel was inclined to make a ' holy bully' of him- 
self, and be guilty of so purely beastly a speech as Beecher had made in respond- 
ing to his letter to his client, he [Van Cott] would decline to present any rejoinder, 
for the reason that it was beneath his notice." 

As time went on Mr. Beecher seems to have become hardened in 
his conscience and conduct; and when he saw that some of the 
wealthiest of his society were inclined to stick by and uphold him, 
he determined to put a bold face upon it and defy public opinion. 
Some of the most highly intelligent, thoughtful, and respectable of 
his church sent in their resignations and withdrew from fellowship 
with him ; alleging as the grounds for their resignation " that they 
could not conscientiously belong to a church in the pastor of which 
they had no confidence " ; but ]Mr. Beecher decided, for himself, not 
to withdraw or leave the ship so long as she would float ; and as his 
rich supporters raised his salary to the enormous sum of a hundred 
thousand dollars, he put on a bold face, and " Mammon won his way 
where seraphs might despair." Thus " a wolf in sheep's clothing " 
he continued to the end. And now, let us ask, in what was he great ? ^ 



1 " Mr. Beecher was not a thinker, not a continuous worker, not a steady plodder 
at anything ; his strength lay in the rich juices of life that permeated his brain, 
in the quickening of the forces of a naturally bright and joyous nature. 

" Mr. Beecher lived on the surface of things. He never got far below the 
surface. If he was ever profound, it was only for a moment at a time. 

" His work was to illustrate the ideas which were operative in the world, not 



xxiv PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

He has added nothing of permanent value or beauty to the literature 
of the world. The world is no wiser or better to-day for his having 
lived. And yet he was great in one direction, — in selfish craft and 
duplicity ! for during more than a quarter of a century he fooled one 
of the richest Christian societies of America out of vast sums of 
their glittering gold, while he at the same time amused himself with 
their wives and daughters, — prowling stealthily among them like a 
wolf in sheep's clothing ; ruining the peace and happiness of one, at 
least, if not more, of the happiest and most promising homes in all 
the land ; and this for his own lecherous and vile gratification. And 
what did he give them in return? Nothing! absolutely nothing of 
any permanent value! but plenty of glittering generalities and emo- 
tional oratory. Gathering around himself a host of the most wealthy 
and consequently idle members of one of the richest communities 
of the land, among whom were to be numbered some of his own facile 
and foolish victims, he posed before them as the great moral and 
religious light of the nineteenth century ; and he poured forth, week 



to originate or formulate them. This determines the judgment of the man now 
that death has set the seal to his fame and closed the record of his services to his 
fellow-men. He was great as an orator, as a humorist, as a reformer, as a diffuser 
of ideas, as a beneficent factor in society, as one of the middle men in American 
thought and ethical movement ; but there was a limit to his influence which will 
be more and more apparent as time goes on. 

" He has left nothing which will enter as literature into the permanent thought 
of the time. His sermons have no vitality ; his general writings, though often 
finely expressed, are nothing but the swift utterance of the moment, without a 
thought beyond the ending of it as soon as possible ; and all the circumstances 
of his life were against the permanent expression of his strength. 

" He was the man for action, not for speculation, not for the closet, not for 
strength of thought. His field, after all, was that of the orator ; and he is to be 
judged best by such a standard as was applied to the late Dr. Chapin, who on the 
platform and in the pulpit, if not in the large arena of public affairs, was quite 
his equal. Mr. Beecher had a checkered career. When at the pinnacle of his 
popularity as an American citizen he realized the fickleness of fame in the terrible 
moments when he was involved in the meshes of a great scandal." — Boston Herald. 

"His 'Life of Christ' is without any critical value, and its discontinuance is 
not a matter of regret. It was a brilliant paraphrase of the New Testament narra- 
tion, in which Mr. Beecher spoke ten times from his emotion to once from his 
reason." — New York Nation. 



PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. xxv 

after week and year after year, his flowing and effulgently emotional 
oratory, while in his own secret bosom he bore a heart of lechery and 
duplicity to which the hearts of Nero and Tarquiu, morally considered, 
were as white and pure as the stainless snows that shine with eternal 
whiteness on the lofty summit of Mont Blanc ; for Nero and Tarquin 
were but worldly men in open pursuit of worldly pleasures and 
ambitions, while he was, in pretence at least, a spiritual and moral 
guide to a people that was looking for spiritual light and moral 
guidance. If such a man be worthy of a monument to perpetuate 
his memory on earth, then let them build it high as heaven itself ! 
until it " o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head of blue Olympus " ; 
and even then it will not be commensurate with his own towering 
talents for duplicity and sin. But, say his admirers, his life for the 
last few years has been a model of propriety and purity. And so it 
must have been, of necessity; for he knew and felt that his own 
people, and the world, had put him upon his good behavior; and, 
moreover, "passion had raged itself to rest"! and the impotency of 
age did for him what his own moral worth — or lack of moral worth — 
had never been able to do during the years of his vigorous physical 
manhood. AYell might he then struggle earnestly to regain some 
slight portion of his lost prestige and respectability. But during the 
height of his vigorous performances, thoughtful and discreet members 
of his own society, and of the world, felt that he was not a man ta 
be trusted as a spiritual adviser and guide, or to whom they could 
confide the welfare and society of their wives and daughters with 
unbounded safety. In proof of the truth of these unwholesome 
allegations we have adduced the utterances of many eminent persons 
and public journals to the same effect. To those already cited many 
more equally strong and condemnatory might be given ; but satis est 
superque. These allegations have been long standing, and have never 
been disproved ; nor have the persons and journals who have uttered 
such fearful testimony ever recalled or recanted what they so delib- 
erately declared, — nor is there any thought that they will ever now 
so stultify themselves as to do so in the future. They knew that they 
were uttering solemn truths that never could hereafter be disproved. 



XXVI PREFATORY INTRODUCTION. 

But the time to write a wholly truthful biography of Mr. Beecher has 
not yet arrived. There will come a clay, when his intoxicated ad- 
mirers — those who are " Beecher-drunk," as the phrase goes — have 
passed away, when the glamour of his personal influence and emotional 
oratory has spent its force, when there will be found a pen to write 
a true estimate and a searching biography of Henry Ward Beecher. 
But the pen that writes it all, must be forged from the sharpest edge 
of Justice' fabled sword, and be dipped in ink of a hue as black as 
the turgid waters of most unwholesome Acheron, that blackest and 

most loathsome of the rivers of deep Hell. 

G. D. 



THE WANDEEEE; 

OR, 

LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 

' Suis avec moi, page par page, 
Mon douloureux pelerinage, 
Depuis le premier cle mes jours. 
Vois-tu cet enfant qui repose? 
Sur son visage calme et rose, 
Le sour ire liabite toujours. 

Mais aussitot que la pensee 

De son ame s'est elancee, 

Ses yeux perdent leur doux eclat ; 

Sa joue enfantine est palie, 

Et la triste melancolie 

Fait penclier son corps delicat : 

' Malheureux le mortel qui pense, 
Et qui veut sonder I'existenee 
Avant d'en gouter les douceurs ! 
Pour lui, tout plaisir s'empoisonne 
Pour lui. la plus belle couronne 
X' off re que de steriles fleurs ! 

'Comme la vague suit la vague, 
Dans sa pensee ardente et vague 
Se succedent les sentiments ; 
Et sa precoce intelligence 
Jaillit, se deploie et s'elance 
Aux spheres des ravissements ! " 

COLET. 



VENVOI. 

Behold one fytte of life's sad pilgrimage ! 
"More than ejiozighV some carper may exclaim; 
But he who hath in sorrow penned each page, 
Will little heed if critics praise or blame : 
What though the idle brood, in rage, complain 
And launch their venomed malice on the wind? 
A few short years., and all will be the same ! 
Posterity will jttdge with fairer mind ; 
A nd what is good and true a recompense will find. 

But ye who tuould some further tidings learn 
Of the lone Waitderer, — on a far-off shore, — 
If for him one sad heart doth fondly yearn. 
To tliat one heart he fain would whisper more ; 
Whatever Fate, for him, may have in store, — 
So7ne fociure strain shall waft it to the ear I 
A nd howsoe''er mad critics may deplore. 
Some loving eye for hi7n may shed a tear, 
Or fair hand twine one wreath for his 2inti7nely bier. 



THE WANDERER; 

OR, 

LIFE\S PILGRIMAGE. 



Ev yap St] ToSe 'ISfxev ivl (^pecrtV. ecrre 6e Travre? 
fxdpTvpoL. ovs fx-q KTJpcs e/Sav OavdroLo (jiipovaai. 



'IAta5o5, /3'. 



♦ FYTTE THE FIRST. 

I. 

HEAVEx-BORx Goclcless ! celestial Muse ! 
A humble suppliant invokes thine aid : 
Do not thine ardent worshipper refuse ; 
Be thy mysterious spells upon him laid. 
Never to thee hath devotee e'er prayed 
With a devotion such as now I bring, 
Since erst in classic Greece the Muses strayed 
Inspiring mighty bards of old to sing : 
Lo I invoke thine aid my feeble lyre to string! 

II. 

Sing, heavenly Goddess!^ — but no longer thou 
Dost deign one earth-born mortal to inspire : 
The " Sacred :N^ine," alas ! are silent now, 



^IrjVLV aei6e, Qed. 

'IAia6o?, a'. 



4 THE WANDERER; OR, 

And cold tlie ashes of that fabled fire 
Ycleped celestial; but the tuneful lyre, 
Though lacking now thy fabled mystic aid, 
May yield some feeble strains, at the desire 
Of him who hath much faithful homage paid, 
AVhile to the shrines of bards his pilgrimage is made. 

III. 

Oh, many a noble soul is bowed by fate, 
And many a trusting heart has been betrayed : 
This world is filled with rancor and with hate. 
And noblest deeds are oft with ill repaid : 
wretched youth, whose soul is open laid, 
A ready mark for Envy's poisoned shaft ! 
Oft shalt thou feel the thrust by Malice made, 
And suffer from the hellish arts of Craft, 
Ere thou canst learn to shun the hand that hurls the 
shaft. 

IV. 

Oh, are there any who can still believe 
That things are really what at first they seem, — 
Who do not yet in disappointment grieve 
To find that life is but an empty dream ? 
And do ye fondly hope to-morrow's beam 
Will gild the well-kept promise of to-day, — 
That no sad strain will mingle with life's theme, 
Or youth's high purpose ever die away. 
Or morning's golden glow e'er fade to ashen-gray ? 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 



V. 



If such there be, listen to my song, 
While I recount the mournful fate of one 
AYho started on life's course with purpose strong, 
To only do what nobly might be done : 
Confidingly he deemed that from each tongue 
The words of truth and candor only came; 
But soon, with growing years, his heart was wrung 
By the world's falsehood and unblushing shame ; 
Yet, hesitating still, he feared to wrongly blame. 



vi. 



In fair America dwelt this poor youth. 
Where in the wildness of a mountain home 
His steps were guided in the ways of truth 
By a dear mother whom he doted on; 
And if, in later years, his footsteps from 
The paths of virtue tempted are to stray, 
The memory of that mother back upon 
His heart will come, withouten a delay. 
To lead his soul aright in rectitude's fair way. 

TII. 

In early youth he grew a thoughtful child. 

Who loved to roam the mountains of his land; 

Often he sought the precipices wild. 

And on the topmost peaks would lingering stand: 

There idly casting with a boyish hand 

The loosened stones into the vale below, 



6 THE W AN BE RE R ; OR, 

Watching tliem dashing down upon the sand, 
And striving ever still to farther throw, 
He learned in early youth his growing strength to know. 

VIII. 

But early to his home misfortune came. 
To break the charm of every boyish dream ; 
Piercing his soul with deep and hidden pain, 
Shrouding in sadness every youthful scene : 
From out the darkened gloom there came no beam 
Or ray of hope to cheer his aching heart, 
But desolation all around did seem 
To bid him from his youthful home depart, — 
Though in his eye that thought caused burning tears to 
start. 

IX. 

He did not wear his heart upon his sleeve,^ 
Or tell his woes to sympathizing ear. 
But in his own sad loneliness would grieve, 
And turn him from his mates to hide his tear ; 
And often, too, would shun the one most dear. 
As if it pained his soul to see her nigh ; 
And yet he longed her gentle words to hear, 
When heaved his bosom with convulsive sigh 
Which he could ill conceal, however he might try. 



1 For when my outward action cloth demonstrate 
The native act and figure of my heart 
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after 
But I will wear my heart upon mij sleeve 
For daws to peck at : I am not what I am. 

Othello, Act I., Scene 1. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 



He gazed in sorrow on his ruined home, 
And felt like outcast on life's troubled sea: 
Determined then awhile at least to roam, 
And try what fate in other lands might be ; 
Then with a throbbing heart and sigh turned he 
And glided ghost-like from his fireless hearth 
Into the darkness, — where no eye might see 
His desolation and his soul's deep dearth, 
When fled he from the scenes of his unhappy birth. 

XI. 

there are words and deeds that pierce the heart, 
And like the scathing lightnings sear the soul 
Even in a moment, as like fiery dart 
The forked flash will leap from pole to pole ! 
And who but God alone can e'er control 
The scathing lightnings or the blasts of fate ? 
Or who can heal the heart and make it whole, 
When it is pierced and torn by grief or hate, — 
And all the soul's fond hopes lie crushed and desolate! 

XII. 

Xow he is like the leaf that loads the gale, 
Torn from its parent stem by some rude wind. 
And doomed with every varying breeze to sail, 
And leave its fading sisters all behind: 
And never may it be his lot to find 
A quiet haven or an hour of rest : 



8 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Where, in some sweet vale sheltered from the wind, 
He may at last with peace and love be blest, 
And calm his restless soul on sympathizing breast. 

XIII. 

Oh, for such rest we ever look and long ! 
But seeking happiness, we seek in vain. 
How many are there, in the world's mad throng. 
Who find an hour of peace unmixed with pain ? 
One moment wildly gay, and then again 
Quickly the shades of sorrow darken all ! 
And with life's music mingles a sad strain, 
And wedding garments change to funeral pall. 
And life's red wine is mixed Avitli bitterness and gall I 

XIV. 

But on, forever on ! Let him away. 
To seek distraction in perpetual change ! 
Reason would totter should he longer stay, 
To let his thoughts in gloomy musings range : 
Let him in distant climes and countries strange 
Find food for meditation; where the mind 
May learn to think less darkly, and where change 
Of scene and thought may yet the chains unwind, 
Which now with clankless strain his dark soul firmly 
bind. 

XV. 

And now he treads the vessel's heaving deck, — 
A huge leviathan that ploughs the deep ; 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 9 

Little of life or safety dotli lie reek, 
Since he on shore no more can rest or sleep : 
Within his soul a vigil doth he keep, — 
A vigil sore that drives him from all rest ; 
And but for pride full often could he weep, — 
And tears, perchance, would ease his aching breast ^ 
But he in pride of soul all signs of pain repressed. 

XVI. 

And now his bark is launched upon the deep, 
And all her white sails spread to catch the breeze ; 
And from receding shores they swiftly sweep, 
And dash through foam and darkly rolling seas ; 
And warring winds and waves do seem to please 
And calm the tempest of his own dark mind ; 
But when his fellow-voyagers he sees 
Lamenting for the friends they leave behind, 
He searches memory's land, where he no friends can 
find. 

XYII. 

And then in joyless mood apart he walked, 
As loath that human eyes should see his woe ; 
And to the elements as friends he talked, 
And heard sad voices in the winds that blow, 
Answering the darkly-rolling waves below : 
Long there he communed Avith the waves and wind ; 
And there in darkness let his own tears flow, — 
Tears which in light of day no channels find, 
But burn the throbbing brain and flood the pent-up 
mind. 



10 THE WANDERER; OR, 

XVIII. 

The white sail strains, and bends the quivering mast, 
Driving his frail bark o'er the billowy sea, 
Until she groans beneath the howling blast 
As if each plank were straining to break free : 
God ! it is a thrilling sight to see. 
When winds and waves are warring in their might. 
While on their strife hangs human destiny, 
And storms and darkness quench the cheerful light! 
Thus storm surrounded now, he bids the world '• Good 
night." 



Blow on, hoarse winds ! in madness blow ! 

Little I fear your might ; 
And to the cheerless world below 

I fain would say " Good night ! " 
The rushing waves no terror move, 

Eolling their mad career : 
The heart that nothing has to love 

Has nothing left to fear ! 



2. 

0, had the few whom I so loved, 
When they cared not for me, — 

Or one, I name not, constant proved, 
I had not dared the sea : 

Let fjroaninq; keel and strainincr mast 



LIFE'S PILGRUIAGE. 11 

War on with wind and Avave ! 
The ocean may engulf the past, 
And give a peaceful grave. 

3. 

A hated, prying throng to leave, 

I fled across the sea; 
And, perishing, I will not grieve, 

And none may grieve for me ; 
And yet the world I would not wrong, — 

The fault perchance was mine : 
The hate I bore the vulgar tlirong 

Had milder grown with time. 



Often I bore their envious spite. 

Through hours of silent woe ! 
And never yet denied the right 

To friend, or e'en to foe : 
Why need men sting a fellow-man 

With venomed tongue of hate ? 
Or malice render life's brief span 

So deeply desolate ? 

5. 

Fiercer and fiercer blows the gale ; 

The waves roll mountain-high ; 
And shivered mast and wind-rent sail 

Proclaim Death hovering nigh : 
Though ocean's waves no mercy have. 



12 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Though merciless the wind, 
Yet waves and winds may kinder prove 
Than all I left behind. 



From dangers near I will not shrink, 

Or pray our bark to save, 
But firmly trust in God, and think 

There 's peace within the grave ! 
And if it be decreed that here 

We don Death's funeral pall, 
Then unto those once loved — a tear! 

And long farewell to all ! 

XIX. 

Thus weary days and weeks roll slowly by. 
While o'er the waste of waters still they sail; 
And yet no wished-for shore seems ever nigh, — 
And mast and sail are rent by many a gale. 
At length upon a sunless morn they hail, 
With joyous shout, the sight of distant land ! 
And sailors soon clew up each wind-rent sail, 
With song and jest and ever-busy hand; 
While on the deck collects that weary sea-worn band. 

XX. 

Here ride the navies of all nations ; and 

Here, too, the commerce of the world doth float; 

And various flags from many a distant land 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 13 

Wave from the mast of strangely moulded boat : 
All these our voyagers with wonder note — 
Save the sad Wanderer, who doth walk a^jart, 
And, while all others on strange sights do gloat, 
Seems he to commune with his own sad heart ; 
Then wakes from musing long, with sudden, anxious 
start. 

XXI. 

And now to shore they come ; and all prepare 
To quit their lately floating pent-up home, 
Where they, together, dangers long did share ; 
But separated now, are doomed to roam ; 
And often, at such parting, there will come 
A sadness to the heart, — we know not why ; 
But dangers shared — like sorrow — soon become 
A binding link that, breaking, brings a sigh, — 
And tell-tale tear-drops rise in sympathizing eye. 

XXII. 

Hail, proud Britannia ! with thy sea-girt shore 
And thousand bays ! and each a nursery 
Of navies which the whole wide world explore. 
And bear thy flag on every distant sea! 
But not so much for these shall honored be 
Thy name, as for thy bards of miglity fame ; 
For thy proud flag bears too much tyranny; 
But all the world doth bow to the great name 
Of thy sweet Shakespeare, and thy many bards of fame. 



14 THE WANDERER; OR, 

XXIII. 

They guard Ms ashes by sweet Avon's stream, 
Where his young eyes first opened to the day; 
And wisely guard them there ! let no one deem 
His ashes honored, placed by royal clay ; 
Yet some have sought to bear his bones away, 
To place them in the maus'leum of their kings ; 
And in their stupid pride have dared to say 
He would be honored by those sceptred things : 
Their ashes honor his ! Such thought dishonor brings ! 

XXIV. 

Great God, are men so senseless and so blind 
As not to see wherein true honor lies ? 
He ruled the mighty realms of god-like mind. 
Inheriting from Him who rules the skies ! 
The crown of Genius only fits the wise; 
The laurel-crown is for the truly great ; 
Those other gilded bawbles fools so prize 
Are but the playthings of a nursing state, — 
The gewgaws of poor weaklings and the would-be great ! 

XXV. 

Genius can sanctify the humblest spot ; 
Its glory shames the idle pomp of kings : 
Who hath not felt its mystic spell, knows not 
The secret charm its wondrous presence brings : 
O'er this loved spot an influence it flings 
That renders this the Mecca of the soul ! 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 15 

From far-off climes full many a pilgrim brings 
The incense of the mind; and to this goal 
He bends his willing steps, with feelings past control ! 



I stood by Avon's winding stream; 

And tearful eyes were gazing on 
A tomb where sleep, in endless dream, 

The ashes of proud " Stratford's Swan." ^ 
And mortal heads were bending low 

In reverence round that humble tomb, 
Where, flitting ever to and fro. 

Strange throngs of shadowy forms tind room. 



With Fancy's eye I see them all, — 

A wondrous, shadowy spirit-throng! 
With ashy lips some seem to call, 

And some seem chanting airy song ; 
Mouthing and moping here and there, 

Some glide all ghost-like to and fro ; 
While some seem spirits of the air 

Watching the ways of those below. 



1 In an nnpretendinp; chui'ch in the rural town of Stratford, and near the 
sweetly-gliding River Avon, sleeps, beneath a plain and humble slab, all that was 
mortal of the great and immortal Shakespeare, "the sweet Swan of Avon"; but 
infinitely greater, in his humble grave, than all the kings who lie in gorgeous 
tombs ill Westminster Abbey. 



16 THE WANDERER; OR, 



Many with coronets are crowned, — 

Some robed like haughty kings and queens; 
While one, with gaze bent on the ground. 

In weeds of woe, a mourner seems : 
In " inky cloak," ^ his ashen face 

E'er thrills me with its solemn stare; 
While ever by him seems to pace 

A kingly, ghost-like form of air; 



Which seeing, he, with wonder thrilled 

And outstretched hands, on bended knee, 
In supplicating mood, seems filled 

With doubt and dread uncertainty; 
Thus gazing on that kingly form. 

He seems to list some dreadful tale; 
For. like the rack of driving storm, 

Dark shades flit o'er his features pale. 



It thrills the soul to see the throngs 
Of airy forms that there find room 
AVhile Fancy's ear hears airy songs 



1 '■'Hamlet. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, g;ood mother, 
Nor customary suits of solemn black, 
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 
Too-ether with all forms, modes, shows of grief. 
That can denote me truly .'' — Hamlet, Act I., Scene 2. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 17 

Sighed out above that wizard's tomb; 
And Fancy's eye beholds with fear 

Such sights as woukl appall the brave, — 
The murderer's knife, the victim's tear, 

Woman's remorse, and maiden's s^rave. 



And one dark form, appalled with fears, 

From meditation deep, profound. 
With sudden "flaws and starts," appears 

To chase an " air-drawn dagger " ^ round ! 
And near him a right queenly form 

Her pallid hands appears to lave ; 
And of '-damned spots," of murder born, 

In walking sleep, she seems to rave.- 

7. 

While weird and withered forms around 
In magic circles seem to turn, 



1 " Ladij Macbeth. This is the very painting of your fear : 
This is tlie nir-draicn do.gger, which, you said, 
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts 
(Impostors to true fear) would well become 
A woman's story at a winter's fire. 

Authorized by her grandam." —Macbeth, Act III., Scene 4. 
2 " Waiting-icoman. Lo you, hei-e she comes ! This is her very guise ; and, 
upon ray life, fast asleep. Observe her. 
Doctor. Wbsit is it she does now ? Look how she rubs her hands ! 
Waiting-woman. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her 
hands ; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. 

Lady Macbeth (walking in her sleep and rubbing her hands). Yet here 's a spot. 
Out, damned spot! out, I say ! — one, two : why, then 'tis time to do't." 

Macbeth, Act V., Scene 1. 



18 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Where, rising ghostlike from the ground, 
Blue, lurid flames round caldron burn : ^ 

As if by magic, mingle all 

These beings of a wizard's brain; 

While airy voices seem to call. 

They pass, and turn, and come again. 



Why turn they here in endless round ? 

Why hover ever o'er this tomb. 
Obeying, as by magic bound. 

His ashes in their final home ? 
Great wizard of the world, sleep on ! 

The world, in reverence, bows to thee ; 
Millions of ages yet to come 

To thy great name shall bend the knee I 



Eeader, go stand beside that grave ! 

The sights I saw shall meet your view : 
If not, then pray your soul to save : 

That wizard's charms are not for you ; 
For there forever must that throng 

Of shadowy beings wheel their round; 
And airy voices breathe wild song, 

Where the great wizard's grave is found. 



1 " Witches. Round about the caldron go ; 
In the poisoned entrails throw, — 
Double, double toil and trouble ; 
Fire, burn ; and, caldron, bubble." 

Macbeth, Act IV., Scene 1. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 19 



XXVI. 



The realms he ruled are the vast realms of mind ; 
They are eternal ! ne'er can pass away ! 
He peopled them with beings of a kind 
That are not fashioned from our common clay ; — 
They live forever ! they own not the sway 
Of the fell tyrant whom the world calls Death ! 
He stalks the earth and blasts his human prey, 
But cannot touch them with his blighting breath : 
Thus Genius champions Fate, and proudly triumpheth ! 

XXVII. 

When flits the shade of Genius to the skies, 
With steps that linger still we turn away ; 
A thousand fancies in the mind arise. 
And eyes long dry their dewy drops display : 
Thus doth the soul her silent tribute pay 
To godlike Genius, monarch of the mind ! 
We fain would go, but lingeringly delay : 
Some unseen charm the spirit seems to bind. 
With bands that will not break or from the soul un- 
wind. 

XXVIII. 

And thus we linger by sweet Avon's side. 
And, pensive, watch the silent currents go ; 
Through scenes of quiet beauty now they glide ; 
By flowery banks of loveliness they flow ; — 
Sweet scenes of contemplation ! And now, lo, 



20 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

Dark towers from out the troubled currents rise : 
Huge battlements on high, the wave below ! 
And wdiere yon banners flout the summer skies 
"King-maker" Warwick's towers salute the wondering 
eyes.^ 

XXIX. 

0, who unmoved can gaze upon those walls, 
Dark wdth the stains of full a thousand years ? 
Their solemn grandeur to the mind recalls 
Deeds of oppression, tales of blood and tears ! 
That mighty fortress its vast bulk uprears 
To the sweet sunlight of G-od's fair domain ; 
Carved in the rock, beneath its base appears 



1 Richard Nevil, seventeenth Earl of Warwick, — counting from the times of 
William the Conqueror, — was known in English history as "The stout Earl of 
Warwick, the king-maker." He was sufficiently powerful to hold the balance 
of power between the houses of York and Lancaster ; and he made or unmade 
kings of this or that house as best suited his passions or interest for the time being. 
His life was passed in broils and wars, and he rendered England, during the reign 
of his power, a scene of bloodshed and confusion. He was finally slain at the 
battle of Barnet, April 14, 1471, in which battle he fought against Edward IV., 
trying to replace Henry VI. upon the throne from which he had hurled him but a 
few years before. 

There have been more than forty Earls of "Warwick since the days of "the 
redoubtable Guy," great Earl of Warwick and baron of Wallingford ; he died in 
929, and according to vulgar belief his height exceeded nine feet. His armor is 
still preserved in the castle, and weighs, including his great two-handed sword, 
nearly six feet long, over one hundred pounds. The feats of strength attributed to 
him were wonderful : he slew a Saracen giant in single combat ; killed a wild boar 
and a huge green dragon. Before his times Warwick had Earls innumerable, for 
Rous, the Warwickshire antiquary, assures us "that Warwick hath had its Earls 
ever since the reign of the renowned King Arthur, when Arthgal or Artigalth 
first enjoyed that honor" ; and he furnishes a list of the succeeding Earls from 
ancient British chronicles. In this he is partly followed by Dugdale. 




WARWICK CASTLE cwithin the outer walls). See page 20. 



LIFE'S PILGRUIAGE. 21 

A range of dungeons, — scenes of woe and pain, 
Where many a wretch hath pined, and clanked his 
prison chain. 

XXX. 

Ay, these dark dungeons, ages long gone by, 
Have been the scenes of misery and woe, — 
Have echoed often to the prisoner's sigh. 
Have witnessed bitter tears in silence flow : 
Here the dim light doth scarcely serve to show 
The rude inscriptions carved upon the stones 
By weary wretches, who to soothe their woe 
Wrought these rude records, which in saddest tones 
Make known their hapless lots and echo back their 



1 Some of the towers of Warwick castle are simply gigantic ; based upon the 
solid rock, with walls fully ten feet in thickness, they rise to the enormous height 
of nearly or quite 150 feet ; and having braved the ravages of time and the depre- 
dations of man for nearly a thousand years, they stand as plumb to-day as when 
first constructed. In some there are many tiers of guard-rooms ; while beneath 
others are deep, dark dungeons, which are reached by descending long flights of 
stone steps. In these dungeons prisoners were confined ; and, from stanchion- 
holes in the walls, it is evident they were sometimes chained. Many rude inscrip- 
tions are still legible, carved upon the walls around ; I add one or two, with the 
original spelling and punctuation : 

"MAfTEB: lohN : SaiYTH : Gvxer : to: his MAIESTyE : HighNES : WAS A 
PRISNER IX THIS PlACE : AND : lAV : HEBE : froM 1642 TEll th" 

And on another stone is the following: 

" WllllAM SiDlaTE ROT ThiS SAME AND if My PiX HAD BiK BETEB fOR 
HIS SakE I WOVld have MEXdEd EVEBRi leTTEB." 

Drawings of cross-bows, crucifijces, and inscriptions, mingled with coats-of-arms, 
are traced around on different dungeon-walls, but are nearly obliterated from the 
damp walls by lapse of time. Some of these towers are coeval with the Norman 
conquest ; and here is preserved entire one of the portcullises now so rare. From 



22 THE WANDERER: OR, 



XXXI. 



Right well the early lords of this fair land 
Chose here a site to rear such massive walls, 
Where lofty battlements and towers grand 
Should guard their dames in rich baronial halls ; 
A hundred feet below, the river falls 
With soothing sound, laving the castle's base ; 
While far and wide the varied view recalls 
The ancient sports of hawking and the chase, — 
Eor through a hundred glades the sleek deer softly pace. 

XXXII. 

For those who roam this land with thoughtful mind. 
With mental vision on the past intent, 
In verdant vales and forests shall they find 
The sweetest joys that Nature ever sent : 
And for the Wanderer, wheresoe'er he went. 
Each opening glade and hawthorn-bounded field 
Became a joy, and to his S]jirit lent 
The secret charm of beauties all revealed, — 
That cloy not when possessed, but deeper raptures yield. 



the Great Hall a view is obtained, at a single glance, of the grand suite of state 
rooms and domestic apartments, extending 333 feet in a right line ; while from the 
windows one looks down upon the river that laves the base of the castle a hundred 
feet below, and sees in the distance one of the largest and finest parks to be found 
in the kingdom. When seen by the author, the castle was filled with the rarest 
works of art by the old masters, and the princely apartments were adorned with 
costly hangings and rich furniture ; since then it has been much injured by an 
accidental conflagration. Sir Walter Scott called Warwick castle, "that fairest 
monument of ancient and chivalrous splendor which yet remains uninjured by 
time." 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE, 23 

XXXIII. 

Kocks, trees, and crags to him as brothers are ; 
With them he e'er companionship did find, 
And every fragrant rose and floweret fair 
Like sisters sweet could tranquillize his mind; 
From every gentle breeze or sighing Aviiid 
Strange mystic voices whispered to his soul ; 
In their mysterious tones his soul did find 
Strange teachings that could counsel and condole, — 
Waking a train of thought he could not all control. 

XXXIV. 

The upturned faces of the golden flowers, 
Unfolding their fresh beauties to the sun. 
Remind us of our own bright youthful hours, 
When life's sad pilgrimage was but begun, — 
Ere yet one darkening cloud had dimmed Hope's sun. 
Or Disappointment's breath had chilled the heart ; 
When joyously we thought life's course to run, 
And deemed that Hope and we should never part, — 
Or dreamed that Sorrow's hand could wound the trust- 
ing heart. 

XXXV. 

Fair is the eye of beauty when it beams 
From dark-fringed lids, beneath a brow of snow : 
Waking within the heart of youth bright dreams, 
Which 'neath love's liquid glances brighter grow. 
Until the throbbing heart is all aglow, 



24 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Consuming with the heat of wild desire. 
As gazing in such eye, which oft droops low 
With love's soft glance, then, flashing with hope's fire, 
Beams 'neath its dark-fringed lid to wake e'en dead 
desire. 



XXXVI. 

Is there upon the earth a breast so cold 
It hath not felt the power of such an eye ? 
Is there upon the earth a heart so old 
It doth not feel it still ? — then let it die ! 
For wherefore should we live and groan and sigh, 
When beauty and when nature charm no more ? 
When beauty's charms and nature's have passed by. 
We are but broken hulks on Time's bleak shore, — 
And the dark Stygian pool should hasten to pass o'er. 



XXXVII. 

0, there was one ! — but never more shall I 
With mortal eyes behold her heavenly face ! 
And ever deeply must my bosom sigh, 
While memory's magic powers those features trace, 
Faithfully reproducing every grace, 
Which, long unseen, is well remembered still; 
But who, once having seen such wondrous face. 
Could banish it from memory at will, — 
Or bid his sighing bosom to be cold and still ? 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 25 

XXXYIII. 

But all too mucli of this : I would not here 
Breathe her sweet name e'en to the sighing wind; 
Though that loved name is music to mine ear. 
And her dear image ne'er can leave the mind : 
But there are mental treasures which we bind 
In the recesses of the inmost soul ; 
And tremble lest some ruder beings find 
A key, or clew, that will lay bare the whole. 
And ope to vulgar gaze the treasures of the soul. 

XXXIX. 

Our hearts are sepulchres, where buried lie 
A throng of withered hopes and friendships cold, 
And saddened memories that will not die, 
But sacred grow as time doth make them old ; 
And in our secret hours they oft are told 
And counted o'er with all a miser's care ; 
Then tearfully replaced amid the mould 
Of the dead past, with feelings of despair, — 
As lovers lay away a flower or tress of hair. 

XL. 

But lo ! what stateh* ruins greet the eye ? 
What broken battlements and crumbling walls ? 
Here autumn winds through broken arches sigh. 
And desolation reigns in ruined halls : 
The very silence of the place appalls ! 



26 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

Yet here was beauty's bower in days of yore ; 
And yonder ivy-mantled tower recalls 
A tale of woe we oft have gloated o'er, 
While sympathizing eyes their silent tears did pour. 

XLI. 

Sad Kenihvorth ! thy mournful ruins long 
Have been the theme of story ! oft have I 
Pored o'er thy legends, told in plaintive song, 
And read thy history with moistened eye : 
Now through thy ruined halls the sad winds sigh, 
And trailing ivy shields each dark recess ; 
Here black bats flit and owlets nightly cry 
O'er gray monastic ruins, tenantless, 
Where Dudley reigned of yore, and feted good Queen 
Bess. 



Kenilworth ! thy crumbling walls 
Speak sadly of the past to me ; 

Now standing in thy ruined halls, 
Thy mighty past I well can see.^ 



I well can see the courtly throng 
That peopled once thy lordly walls 



1 See Historical Appendix, on the ruins of Kenilwortli Castle, at the end of the 
volume. 



,^f^*RI>^1 




QUEEN ELIZABETH'S VISIT TO KENILWORTH. See page 26. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 27 

Gay knights and dames, who trooped along, 
And woke to mirth thy princely halls. 



Thy lordly towers that proudly reared 
Their lofty heads to prop the sky, 

What though those towers have disappeared 1 
Though walls are rent and moat is dry I 



What though to-day no banners float 
Proudly o'er thy embattled walls ; 

What though no waters fill thy moat, 
No drawbridge rises now or falls ! 



What though no warder on thy walls 

Paces to-day his stately round ; 
What though no echoing bugle-calls 

Through keep and court and tower resound ! 



What though no guards or seneschals, 
With hurrying footsteps to and fro, 

Eoused by the echoing bugle-calls. 
Prepare to meet if friend or foe !- 



What though thy glories all are past, — 
Thou once wert mighty, world-renowned, 



2S THE WANDERER; OR, 

Though now the moaning autumn-blast 
Seems thy sad requiem to sound; 



And rent and ruin everywhere 

Fill the beholder's mind with woe, 

Though mantling ivy's shielding care 
Less ghastly lets thy ruins show. 



Here desolation reigns supreme, 

And crumbling ruins strew the ground ; 

Here, where such earthly pomp was seen, 
Kuin and silence most abound ! 



N^importe! By aid of Fancy's eye, 
I gaze adown the vanished years. 

And all thy pomp and panoply 
To my rapt vision now appears. 



As by some great enchanter's power, 

The vanished years are backward rolled. 

Till keep and court and lordly tower 
Again all perfect I behold ! 

12. 

Again the warders mount the walls, 
And princely banners flout the sky ; 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 29 

And EnglaiuVs beauties throng thy halls, 
Guarded by England's chivalry. 

13. 

I see the virgin queen again 

Enthroned in thy high princely hall, — 
A '^ virgin queen," at least in name. 

Beloved by some, and feared by all. 

14. 

And graceful Leicester, bowing low. 

Pays homage on his bended knee, 
And courts his sovereign with a show 

Of mingled love and loyalty : 



While England'^ nobles, standing by, 
Look smilingly his suit upon, 

Deeming he mounts to royalt}', — 
His sovereign's heart already won. 

16. 

Little that sovereign deems that here 
Within these walls a lovelier one ^ 



1 During- Queen Elizabeth's celebrated visit to Kenilworth, and while the Earl 
of Leicester was entertainino her witli such splendor, and also paying- her such 
marked attention that he was generally considered as her favored and accepted 
lover, the beautiful but unhaiipy Amy. to whom he had been secretly married, 
was confined a close prisoner in a tower of the castle called Mervyn's Bower ; and 
it was only after her escape from her prison, and while she was trymg to fly, — she 



30 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Is pouring noAV the silent tear, 

To whom thy plighted faith is sworn. 



Wily deceiver ! dread the hour 

When all the falsehoods of thy heart 

Are bared to her offended power, 
Lest thy poor head and body part. 



She is the daughter of a sire 

Who ne'er brooked injury or slight ; 

Her soul is filled with Henry's lire : 

0, dread the force of her roused mio-ht ! 



The wounded lion, when at bay. 
Is meek compared to her wild rage, 

When jealousy her heart shall sway, 

And vengeance shall her thoughts engage. 



knew not whitlier, — that she was accidentally seen by the queen. And only those 
who are well acquainted with the character of Elizabeth, and have read Scott's 
thrilling description of the scene, can imagine or comprehend the terrible force of 
the queen's rage as she gave way to her roused jealousy and wounded pride ; and 
the explosion of her anger bowed the haughty Leicester to the earth, and shook 
him like an aspen-leaf. "'And will he be the better for thy intercession ? ' said 
the queen, leaving Tressillian, and rushing to Leicester, who continued kneeling ; 
'the better for thy intercession, thou doubly false, thou doubly forsworn ? — of 
thy intercession, whose villany hath made me ridiculous to my subjects and odious 
to myself? I could tear out mine eyes for their blindness !'" 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 31 



20. 



But not for Leicester, nor for queen, 
Do weary pilgrims, year by year, 

Seek out this sad and solemn scene 
To muse in mournful silence here. 



Ah, no ! nor that these ruined walls 
Once owned De Montfort as their lord, 

Or echoed to wild battle-calls 

Beneath Plantagenet's own sword. 

22. 

Oh, no ! nor that great John of Gaunt — 
'• Time-honored Lancaster " — dwelt here : -^ 

Not for such names do pilgrims haunt 

These scenes, and o'er them drop the tear. 

23. 

A deeper charm than all combined 

Is woven round these crumbling stones, — 

The spells of a great master-mind. 

Mingled with injured Beauty's moans. 



1 Henry, Earl of Derby and Duke of Lancaster, died in peaceful possession of 
Kenilwortli in the thirty-fifth year of Edward III., leaving two daughters as his 
joint heiresses, — Maud, aged twenty-two, and Blanch, nineteen. iNIaud after- 
wards married William, Duke of Bavaria ; and Blanch brought Kenilwortli as her 
portion of the inheritance, in marriage, to one of its most illustrious possessors, — 
John of Gaunt, son of Edward III. ; and the king soon after created him Duke of 
Lancaster, — the "time-honored Lancaster" of Shakespeare. Kenilworth Castle 
became to him a favorite place of abode, and he added largely to it ; and some 
portions of the ruins still bear his name, and show the magnificence of his tastes. 



32 THE WANDERER ; OR, 



When tlie pale moon in virgin blaze 
Silvers each crumbling tower and wall, 

And pours a flood of silvery rays 
Through the old grand baronial-hall; 

25. 

Then moving shadows come and go 
Through ivy-branches rent and torn, 

Which to the roused-up fancy show 
Like flittino: maiden's half-seen form : 



And sighing night-winds, moaning round 
Through broken arch and crumbling tower. 

Startle the ear, like distant sound 
Of maiden's moans in prison-bower; 



And softened echoes from the dell. 
Like wavelets on the silver sands. 

Fall on the ear like distant knell 
Of death-bell rung by spirit-hands ! 

28. 

Then will the pilgrim's throbbing heart 
The soul's deep sympathy disclose, 

And in the poet's eye will start 
A tear for Amy Robsart's woes. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 33 



And poet'S head and poet's soul 

Will bow in reverence deep and long 

To him who could all hearts control, — 
To Scotland's bard, her king of song! 

30. 

To Scotland's bard, whose mighty mind 
Wove magic spells these ruins round, 

Where Avoman's love and woes combined 
^lake this forever holy ground. 

XLII. 

0, let us turn to where the ISTorthern Bard 
Sleeps his last sleep in Dryburgh's solemn pile ! 
There, where the Eildon Hills keep watch and ward, 
Sleeps the Last Minstrel in St. Mary's aisle : ^ 
There let us linger by his tomb awhile, 
To pay the silent tribute of a tear. 
And the sad heart of half its grief beguile, 
By deeming that his minstrel-notes we hear, 
Or that his harp's wild strains again salute the ear. 



1 Four miles from iMelrose, on the north bank of the river Tweed, stand the 
picturesque ruins of Dryburgh Abbey. The situation is exceedingly beautiful, as 
the abbey stands upon a richly wooded haugJi, round which the river makes 
a beautiful circuitous sweep. The abbey was founded in 1150, during the reign of 
David I., by Hugh de Moreville, Lord of Lauderdale, Constable of Scotland, upon 
a site which is supposed to have been originally a place of Druidical worship. In 
St. Mary's aisle, by far the most beautiful part of the ruin. Sir Walter Scott was 
buried, 26th September, 1832, in the burying-ground of his ancestors, the Hali- 
bui'tons of Xewmains, the ancient proprietors of the abbey. 



34 THE WANDERER; OR, 

XLIII. 

" Harp of the North ! " — of ancient Caledon, 
The hand that waked thy master-notes is low ! 
And I have wandered far to gaze upon 
This sepulchre, and let my sorrow flow 
In tributary tears. 0, must the glow 
That thrilled thy magic chords beneath his hand 
Forevermore expire ? and through the slow, 
Long lapse of time must listening nations stand 
And wait in vain to hear the Harp of Scotia's Land ? 

XLIV. 

Minstrel-Harp, — " Harp of the North," — awake I 
And fling thy fitful numbers on the wind ! 
Let the Enchanter's wand thy slumbers break ; 
0, let his shade thy bonds of sleep unbind ! 
In vain we call : fled is the Master-mind : 
The hand that swept thy chords is cold and low I 
The eye of Sorrow with hot tears is blind, — 
Yet all in vain the burning torrents flow : 
The Northern Harp is mute, and cold the IMinstrel's 
glow ! 



The harp that once through Scotland's realm 

Eesounded far and wide, 
Is mute as death in Scotland's realm. 

Since her Great Minstrel died : 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 35- 

And Melrose ruins, now unsung, 
Are mouldering in decay ; ^ 



^ Sir Walter Scott wrote muiiy exquisitely beautiful lines concerning the ruins 
of Melrose Abbey. The ruins stand near the village of the same name, and afford 
the finest specimen of Gothic architecture and Gothic sculpture to be found in 
Scotland. Among other beautiful things which Scott wrote concerning the 
famous ruins are the following lines : — 

" If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright. 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight ; 
For the gay beams of lightsome day 
Gild but to flout the ruins gray. 
When the broken arches are black in night. 
And each shafted oriel glimmers white ; 
When the cold light's uncertain shower 
Streams on the ruined central tower ; 
When buttress and buttress, alternately, 
Seem framed of ebon and ivory ; 
When silver edges the imagerj-, 
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die ; 
When distant Tweed is heard to rave, 
And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, 
Then go — but go alone the while — 
Then view St. David's ruined pile ; 
And, home returning, soothly swear, 
Was never scene so sad and fair ! " 

Melrose Abbey was founded about 1136, by David I,, of Scotland. It was ten 
years in building, and was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Melrose, and the I'iver 
Tweed, about which Scott wrote much and beautifully, were among the objects of 
his lifelong affections; and the murmurs of "the sweetly-flowing Tweed," upon 
whose lovely shore he now lies buried, now sing the requiem of Scotland's 
Greatest Minstrel, —and will continue so to do while flowers bloom and gurgling 
waters flow. Melrose Abbey is rich in historic and legendary lore. Tradition 
avers that the famous wizard, Michael Scott, and his wonderful book of magic, 
were buried in the chancel near the high altar. The aged monk, in •• The Lay of 
the Last :Minstrel," tells the good Knight Deloraine, who was sent to seek the 
book which they were about to take from the Wizard's grave : 

" I buried him on St. Michael's night. 
When the bells tolled one, and the moon was bright. 
And I dug his chamber among the dead. 
When the floor of the chancel was stained red. 
That his patron's cross might over him wave, 
And scare the fiends from the Wizard's grave." 

Melrose Abbey was also the final resting-place of the heart of Robert Bruce. 
The heart was brought back from Spain and buried near the high altar, after 
Douglas (he of the '• Bleeding Heart") had made an unsuccessful attempt to carry 
it to the Holy Land, at the command of the dying Bruce. 



36 THE WANDERER; OR, 

And Tweed's fair river rolls along, 
And wakes no minstrel lay. 



And stately Newark's crumbling walls 

Fill the sad heart with sorrow ; 
For now no minstrel in those halls 

Sings to the flowing Yarrow ; ^ 
And sadly sweet St. Mary's lake 

Reflects both hill and meadow ; 
For now no swans the ripples Avake, — 

No swans, nor " swan and shadow." ^ 



Not so in Scotland's glorious days, 
When his wild Harp was sounding, 



1 Newark Castle, — 

" Where Newark's stately tower 
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower," — 

was the place chosen by Scott for the opening scene of " The Lay of the Last 
Mmstrel." 

It is a massive square tower, now in ruins, surrounded by a wall and defended 
by flanking turrets. Its site is exceedingly beautiful, as it stands upon the pictu- 
resque banks of the classic Yarrow, at about three miles distance from Selkirk, in 
what was once the extensive forest of Ettrick. 

Newark Castle, built by James II., stands near the site of a much more ancient 
castle called Auldwark, which has now disappeared. Both were designed for the 
royal residence, whenever the king might "take his pleasure in Ettrick forest." 
The oflace of keeper was bestowed by grants under the Privy Seal upon different 
barons ; but latterly it was held by the family of Buccleuch. The castle was an 
occasional seat of the Buccleuch family for a century or more ; and here, it is said, 
the Duchess of Monmouth and Buccleuch was brought up. For this reason, 
probably. Sir Walter Scott chose to make the great hall of Newark Castle the 
scene where "The Lay of the Last INIinstrel " was sung by "The "SVandering 
Harper," — last of his race, —for the amusement of the Duchess, and in the 
presence of herself and her court. The castle is now a lonely and deserted ruin. 

2 A few miles to the west of Newark Castle, and following the course of the 



LIFE'S PILGEUIAGE. 

When lake and ruin woke liis lays, — 
Sweet lays, for all resounding! 

He sang the deeds of high emprise, 
The ancient deeds of glory, — 

He sang the power of Beauty's eyes, 
So famed in song and story ! 



He sang of woman's noble love, — 

That rich and priceless treasure. 
Earth's richest boon, and far above 

The power of gold to measure : 
He wove in song each noble name. 

Famed in his country's story ; 
He twined for all bright wreaths of fame, 

And croAvned their names with glory. 



^' fierce-flowing Yarrow," one comes to " lone St. Mary's silent lake," of which the 
Yarrow is the outlet. The poet Wordsworth, in some of the most charming lines 
he ever wrote, entitled " Yarrow Unvisited," thus gave his reasons for not visiting- 
Yarrow, and spoke of the swans that are accustomed to haunt the placid waters of 
the silent and lonely lake : — 

" Let beeves and home-bred kine partake, 
The sweets of Burnmill meadow ; 
The swan on still St. 3Ian/s lake 
Float double, sican and shadow! 
We will not see them : will not go, 
To-day, nor yet to-morrow ; 
Enough if in our hearts we know 
There 's such a place as Yarrow." 

The Yarrow, which flows through scenes of wonderful beauty that are rich in 
poetic and historic associations, and St. Mary's lake, of which it is the outlet, are 
among the most interesting places in all Scotland. Yarrow owes much of its fame 
to the fine old ballad, "■ The Braes of Yarrow," by William Hamilton, a Scottish 
gentleman of education and rank, born in 1704. It was Hamilton's ballad that 
suggested to Wordsworth the composition of his poems concerning Yairow. The 
ruins of Dryhope Tower, the birthplace of ^Mary Scott, " tlie famous flower of 
Yarrow," are still to be seen near the lower extremity of '• St. ]Mary's silent lake." 



THE WANDERER; OR 



Now the sad heart is bowed in woe^ 

The eye is red with weeping, 
For the Last Minstrel, cokl and low, 

In silent death is sleeping ! 
He was a minstrel for a king; 

His songs were sweet and grand ; 
Xo minstrel e'er like him could sing. 

None had such skilful hand. 



The while his country's Harp he strung, 

And swept its tender chords, 
The nations on its echoes hung, 

Enchanted by his words. 
He sang of Scotland's glorious days. 

Her trials and her fame ; 
And Scotland, to repay his lays. 

Enshrines his noble name. 



0, when that Harp's last echoes died, 
And palsied was that hand,^ 



1 It was in the summer of 1832 that Sir AValter Scott was conducted by his 
attendants back to Scotland from the south of Europe, where he had been in the 
vain hope of a restoration of his fast-failing health and strength. He arrived back 
in an exceedingly enfeebled condition. But on arriving at his own beloved home, 
on the banks of the Tweed, he seemed to revive and regain some strength, and 
even interested himself in scenery and familiar places he had formerly so dearly 
loved. For some days he was occasionally wheeled about the grounds of Al)bots- 
ford. A few days before his death, while thus taking the air, he fell asleep in the 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 39 

The very soul of minstrel pride 

Was bowed in fair Scotland I 
God, will never minstrel wake 

Those broken chords to tie ? 
God, that such a Harp could break. 

That such a Bard could die ! 



Fair Greece, in all her glorious days. 

One Homer only gave: 
The Homer of fair Scotland's lays 

Xow sleeps in Scottish grave. 
And I, Great Bard, a pilgrim here, 

From lands beyond the sea, 
Bring humble tribute, grateful tear, — 

Tribute and tear for Thee ! 

XLV. 

How many sorrows wait upon us here ! 
How many ills beset this mortal life ! 



chair. After dozing for a sliort time, he started up suddenly, and shaking off 
the plaids he was wrapped in, he said with some energy : "This is sad idleness. 
I shall forget what I have been thinking of, if I don't set it down now. Take 
me into my own room, and fetch the keys of my desk." His attendants wheeled 
him into his study, and placed him at his accustomed writing-desk, and put ink 
and paper in their places before him. He smiled, and, thanking them, said : 
" Now give me my pen, and leave me for a little to mjself." His daughter placed 
the pen in his hand, and he made an effort to close his half-paralyzed fingers 
around it ; but it dropped from his nerveless grasp ; his work was ended ! He 
sank back in his easy-chair, and the big tears rolled down his faded cheeks in 
silence. His nerveless hand never touclied pen again. He soon said to his attend- 
ants : " There is no repose for Sir Walter but in the grave ! " '• Get me to bed. — 
that is the only place." 



40 THE WANDERER; OR, 

How oft the hand must wipe away the tear 
That dims the eye of man and maid and wife: 
Our lives are but a vain and endless strife, 
To win we know not what, and could not tell ! 
And human woes through all our days are rife ; 
And yet kind Nature loves her children well, — 
Would they but taste her joys by mountain, lake, and 
dell ! 

XLVI. 

What joy so pure as through the leafy grove, 
Far from the haunts of men, at will to stray ! 
Pensive beside the purling brook to rove, 
And list each feathery songster's plaintive lay ! 
Or up the mountain path, at opening day. 
To climb, and view the advent of the dawn. 
While Eos with his sceptre drives away 
The shadows of the night ! Lo, lake and lawn 
Gleam in the new-born light, and Night's black reign is 
gone ! 

XLVII. 

Far to the north the cloud-capped mountains rise. 
Inviting Nature's worshipper to come ! 
There lofty peaks appear to prop the skies, 
Lo, there is Nature's vast cathedral-dome! 
There may the worshipper of Nature roam. 
And freely worship God where none intrude ; 
There true Keligion hath her primal home. 
There are no warring creeds or doctrines crude : 
Companionship is there ; but this is solitude ! 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 41 



XLYIII. 



But lo ! Dun-Eclin ^ claims a short delay ; 
Her castled crags, lier desolated lialls: 
Like mourners, we her time-worn towers survey. 
And gaze in silence on her mouldering walls, 
The very silence of her court appalls. 
And overwhelms us with a mournful gloom I 
The saddened mind her former power recalls. — 
Her vanished splendors, and her present doom ; 
For her deserted halls are silent as the tomb. 

XLIX. 

But in the ancient days of Caledon 
These massive walls were the proud seat of power 
The bulwark of the Xorth, reared high upon 
These lofty crags, showed battlement and tower : 
And ]o ! beside was lovely beauty's bower, • — 
AVho hath not heard of Mary's matchless grace ? 
But female beauty is a fatal dower, 
And Fate decreed that her angelic face 
Should Avork her ruin, and a sister-queen's disgrace. 



In Holy-Kood she knew some days of joy ; 
Felt there the sweet endearments of fond love 



1 Dun-Ediii, or Dunedin, is the ancient Gaelic name of Edinburgh : dun, in 
Gaelic, signifying a hill or rocky prominence. Edinburgh is supposed to have 
received its name from Edwin, king of Xorthumbria, early in the seventh century. 

The castle, built upon the summit of a mass of rock of nearly seven acres in 
extent, lowers down upon the surrounding town from a height of 443 feet, and, 
before the use of gunpowder, it was considered impregnable. 



42 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Smiled much upon her fair Italian boy ; ^ 
But those sweet smiles, alas I his murderers move 
To bloody deeds and rash ; and though she strove 
To shield him from the assassin's bloody brand, 
Yet his untimely death to her did prove 
She had no power to stay the murderer's hand 
Or rule the lawless lords of her distracted land. 

LI. 

Fair Holy-Eood hath witnessed many a scene 
Of princely splendor, in the days gone by; 
Here royal James, with a majestic mien. 
Paid courtly homage to dame Heron's eye : ^ 
Even while that lady strove with Avily sigh 



1 David Rizzio, the son of an Italian musician. He went from Turin to Scot- 
land in the suite of an ambassador, and Queen Mary made him one of her pages, 
and her secretary for the French language. After her marriage with Darnley he 
was made keeper of her privy purse. His arrogance and rapid promotion excited 
the envy and hatred of the nobles ; and they aroused the jealousy of Darnley by 
accusing Rizzio of illicit intimacy with Mary. On the 9th of March, 15GG, while 
the queen was supping with Rizzio and a few intimate friends, Darnley and his 
accomplices appeared abruptly in the queen's private apartment, in Holy-Rood, 
dragged Rizzio from her presence, in spite of her entreaties, and dispatched him 
with more than fifty stabs. Stains are still shown at the door of the apartment, 
said to be caused by the blood of the murdered Rizzio. The bed-chamber of 
Queen Mary is still preserved in the same condition as when last occupied by that 
unhappy queen. 

2 As a matter of fact, the acquaintance of James with the Lady Heron of Ford 
did not commence till after his march into England, where she " went and came " 
much between the armies of King James and Lord Surrey. To James's infatuated 
passion for that fair siren are imputed the delays which led to his fatal defeat at 
Flodden. As Sir Walter Scott saw fit to represent the Lady Heron as the bright 
particular star of a ball held by James IV. at Holy-Rood, on the night before he 
set out for the English border, I have seen fit to follow his example ; deeming it 
an honor to err (historically) in such highly illustrious company. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 43 

To bind the king's soft heart with love's fond chain, 
His English enemies were gathering nigh 
To pitch their camp by Flodden's fatal plain : 
That bloody field from whence James ne'er returned 
again. 

LII. 

woman, woman, what a world of pain 
Is charged to thy account in this sad life ! 
And foolish man, thy fickle breast to gain, 
Must oft endure the slights of maid or wife : 
The hollow prize is barely worth the strife ! 
And often lightly won, few can deny : 
Soft yielding breasts in this bad world are rife ; 
For long denial man need seldom die. 
However moon-struck bards have sung with rhythmic lie. 

LIII. 

Adieu, dark Holy-Eood I a long adieu ! 
Thy desolated halls a lesson teach; 
To him who now thy humbled state doth view, 
Thy very stones are eloquent with speech : 
Thy humbled pride is seen in many a breach, 
Marking the progress of thy slow decay ; 
Thy former nameless kings, each after each. 
Went down the tide of time and passed away, 
Leaving memorials slight of their once proud array. ^ 



1 In the palace of Holy-Rood there is a picture-gallery 150 feet long, upon the 
walls of which are suspended the portraits of 106 Scottish kings ; but it would 
trouble a historian to even recall the names and dates of very many of their 
majesties : sic fata hominum eiint. 



44 THE WANDERER; OR, 



LIV 



Now the sad city's solitude to fly, 
The AVanderer prepares with right good-will; 
For Nature's freshness longs the weary eye 
To gaze once more on meadow, lake, and hill : 
The fountains where in youth he drank his hll 
Yield the true balm for his o'erwearied soul: 
Where brave old trees sad Nature's tears distil, 
There finds he friends to counsel and condole ; 
There his own tears can flow, at times, without control. 



LV. 

Where Nature in her wildest aspect calls 
I hear her voice and willingly obey; 
And gladly fly the solemn city's walls, 
Where sadness ever greets my lonely way : 
'T is difficult at times the steps to stay, 
And linger in the weary haunts of men ; 
I long midst sylvan scenes again to stray, 
To haunt the forest glade and woody glen. 
Where summer-birds are free, and wild hares have their 
den. 

LVI. 

What a wild joy the mountain patlis to roam, 
Where roaring winds the bending tree-tops sway ; 
AYhere rushing torrents o'er the black rocks foam, 
And hurl on high their jets of feather}^ spray ! 
0, who in the sad haunts of men would stay, 



,:l ! I 



'1 'h 




LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 45 

Where hated mortals evermore intrude, 
Where craft and crime hold undisputed sway, 
And the sad soul is shocked by insult rude ? 
There am I most alone ! there, there is solitude ! 

LVII. 

Thus mused the Wanderer, as he turned away 
To gaze upon the waters of the Forth : 
No more within the city's walls to stay, 
With scrip and staff he wended to the north: 
AVhat scenes of beauty, as he sallied forth. 
Greeted and soothed his over-wearied eye ! 
Ah, all the works of Man are little worth 
Compared to ISTature's mountain majesty, 
Where peak on peak shoots up to meet the vaulted sky. 

LVIII. 

He passed by sad Linlithgow's ^ ruined court, 
Of Scotland's monarchs once the favored seat ; 
Here Royalty delighted to resort. 
Here lake and grove in wondrous beauty meet: 



1 " Of all the palaces so fair 

Built fox* the royal dwelling 
In Scotland, far beyond compare 

Linlithgow is excelling ; 
And in its park in genial June, 
How sweet the merry linnet's tune, 
How blithe the blackbird's lay ! 
The wild buck bells from thorny brake, 
The coot dives merry on the lake, — 
The saddest heart might pleasure take 
To see a scene so gay." — Marmlon, c. iv. 



46 THE WANDEllER; OR, 

'T were difficult indeed to find retreat 
Where Nature's lavisli ])eauties fairer shine : 
In tlie fail* park tlie linnet's tune is SAveet, — 
"The coot dives on the lake.'' and here combine 
The charms of Paradise, in this wild northern clime. 

LIX. 

So deemed the Wanderer, as he passed along- 
Through scenes that rendered toil of travel dear; 
And, pleased, he listened to the wild-bird's song. 
That out of greenwood bower fell on the ear ; 
And many a ruined tower he wandered near, 
All tenantless, that once was proud and young : 
Their shattered walls no banners now uprear ; 
And stately halls, where high-born minstrels sung, 
Are silent now and lone, that once with revel rung. 

LX. 

And soon he came where Stirling's castled crags 
O'erlook the fatal field of Bannockburn; 
Where England's host and flaunting battle-flags, 
In wild dismay from the Ijold Bruce did turn: 
Here on that day did haughty Edward learn 
How l)anded patriots figlit whose cause is just! 
And many a knight, wlio vauntingly did spurn 
Scotland's array, ere evening '• bit the dust,*' — 
Pavino- with his own life for his o'erweening trust. ^ 



1 The battle of Bannockburn is one of the famous battles of history. It was 
fought on June 24, 1314, near and for the relief of Stirling- castle, which contained 
•a small English garrison. Edward II. of England had entered Scotland with the 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 47 

LXI. 

Long mused the Wanderer on this field of fame : 
For meditation held him s^^ellbound here ; 
While memory recalled each noble name, 
To Scottish patriot's heart forever dear : 
Whilome upon this field there did appear 
A scene of carnage to appall the brave ! 
Here mad ambition closed its brief career, 
Here headlong valor found an early grave ! 
And human gore ran deep ^vhere now the wild-flowers 
wave. 



flower of the English nobility, and an army of about 100,000 men, in order to 
humble and subdue Robert Bruce, who was making a final effort to regain his 
kingdom of Scotland. The castle of Stirling was still held for Edward by a small 
English garrison, which had been nearly on the point of surrendering to the 
Scottish king. Bruce had only about 30,000 fighting men to oppose to the English 
host ; but he had posted his small army very advantageously, with its right flank 
resting on the brook of Bannock, in such a maimer as to bar the advance of the 
English for the relief of Stirling. In the most open and exposed part of the 
ground over which the English would pass to attack him Bruce had caused 
numberless pits to be dug, like the cells in a honey-comb, and so covered with 
brush and green sods as to be unnoticed by the impetuous enemy. On the evening 
before the battle, as Bruce was riding on a small palfrey in front of his army, he 
was discovered by King Edward, who was somewhat angered that Bruce should 
thus dare his royal presence and array. At this Sir Henry de Bohun, a gallant 
English knight, desired to attack him, all unarmed for real war as Bruce was. 
As Sir Henry perceived it would be pleasing to Edward, and gain himself favor 
from his King, he closed his visor and couched his lance and spurred furiously 
upon the iinprotected Scottish king. Only the words of Scott can do justice to 
the encounter: — 

*' As motionless as rocks that bide 

The wrath of the advancing tide, 

The Bruce stood fast. Each heart beat high, 

And dazzled was each gazing eye. 

The heart had hardly time to think. 

The eyelid scarcely time to wink, 

While on the k-ng. like flash of flame, 

Spurred to full speed, the war-horse came ,' 

The partridge may the falcon mock, 

If that slight palfrey stand the shock. 



48 THE WANDERER; OR, 

LXII. 

O'er scenes like these, in melancholy guise, 
The moody moralist may linger long : 
On fields of death 'tis meet to moralize, 
And with big words to execrate the wrong; 
But where are now the noble of that throng, 
Who fought for glory on that fatal day? 
Here in their mid-career perished the strong. 
Here mad ambition's crest was shorn away I — 
Owing all after-fame to some poor minstrel's lay. 

LXIII. 

For such poor meed hath valor dared the field ; 
For such poor meed have combatted the strong; 
For fickle fame the brave are tauglit to yield 
That life which, wdselv used, might bless them lon< 



But, swerving from the knight's career, 
Just as they met Bruce shunned the spear : 
Onward the baffled warrior bore 
His course, but soon his course was o'er, — 
High in his stirrups stood the king. 
And gave his battle-axe the swing ; 
Right on De Boune, the whiles he passed. 
Fell that stern blow, —the first, —the last ! 
Such strength upon tlie blow was put. 
The helmet crashed like hazel-nut, 
The axe-shaft, with its brazen cbisp. 
Was shivered to the gauntlet grasp: 
Springs from the blow the startled horse ; 
Drops to the plain the lifeless corse. 
First of that fatal field, how soon. 
How sudden, fell the fierce De Boune." 



The Scottish leaders, gathering around the heroic Bruce, blamed him for risking 
their united cause upon such feats of personal daring and courage. Bruce, mak- 
ing no reply to them directly, oidy examined sorrowfully his ruined weapon, and 
said mournfully, like a sorrowing school-hoy: "• I have broken my good battle- 
axe ! " 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 49 

To be the theme of some poor poet's song, 
Comfort, and ease, and life itself are lost I 
Who would believe that, in life's busy throng, 
Any might deem such meed as worth the cost ? 
And yet, for tickle fame, what dangerous paths are 
crossed I 

1.1HY, 

Away ! away ! and quit this place of skulls ! 

The very flowers take root in human gore : 

The thought that they grow rank in blood but dulls 

The beauty of their tints forevermore : 

Here, where bold Eandolph the fierce onset bore,^ 

The waving field-flowers wear a deeper stain : 



1 " Bruce had enjoined Randolph, who commanded the left wing of his army, 
to be vigilant in preventing any advanced parties of the English from throwing 
succours mto the Castle of Stirling. Eight hundred horsemen, commanded by 
Sir Robert Clifford, were detached from tlie English army ; they made a circuit 
by the low grounds to the east, and approached the castle. The king perceived 
their motion, and, coming up to Randolph, angrily exclaimed, 'Thoughtless man! 
you have suffered the enemy to pass.' Randolph hastened to repair his fault, 
or perish. As he advanced, the English cavalry wheeled to attack him. Randolph 
drew up his troops in a circular form, witli their spears resting on the ground, 
and protended on every side. At the first onset. Sir AVilliam Daynecourt, an 
English commander of distinguished note, was slain. The enemy, far superior 
in numbers to Randolph, environed him, and pressed hard on his little band ; 
Douglas saw his jeopardy, and requested the king's permission to go and succour 
him. ' You shall not move from your ground,' cried the king ; ' let Randolph 
extricate himself as he best may ; I will not alter my order of battle, and lose the 
advantage of my position.' — ' In truth,' replied Douglas, 'I cannot stand by and 
see Randolph perish, and therefore, with your leave, I must aid him.' The king 
unwillingly consented, and Douglas flew to the assistance of his friend. While 
approaching, he perceived that tlie English were falling into disorder, and that 
the persevei'ance of Randolph had prevailed over their impetuous courage. 
'Halt!' cried Douglas, 'those brave men have repulsed the enemy; let us not 
diminish their glory by sharing it.'" — Dalrymple's Annals of Scotland. 



50 THE WANDERER; OR, 

As if from tliat fell carnage a rich store 
Of nobler blood had fertilized the plain, — 
Prom which their fragrant leaves a deeper dye might 
gain. 

LXV. 

Bnt let ns on, nor longer linger here ! 
For we have many a weary leagne to go ; 
To skirt along by many a Highland mere. 
And mountain-paths to climb with footsteps slow ; 
Thus much, at least, the moral serves to show, — 
That man is merciless to his own race ! 
His deepest study ever is to know 
How to usurp in life the highest place, 
According to his kind but cold and thankless grace. 

LXYI. 

Dame Mature is the dearest nurse of man ! 
Her bounteous breasts forever overflow ; 
Eternal kindness marks her noble plan, — 
Eternal beauties all her workings show ! 
Would vain and sinful man her blessings know, 
And be obedient to her Avise behest. 
Peace and good-will around the earth would flow, 
And all mankind forevermore be blest, — 
And human-life become a good to be possessed. 

LXVII. 

Thus sadly musing, league on league is past 

Of that rich vale wher-e winding Teith doth flow ; 



LIFE'S PILGEUIAGE 51 

Till the dark walls of Doiiiie, lofty and vast^ 
Else in the autumn sunlight's mellow glow : 
Huge towers on high, — the winding Teith below, — 
The massive fortress seems a thing of life ! 
But nearer seen, the marks of ruin show 
The wreck of time ; ay, and of deadly strife, — 
In ages long gone by, when civil wars were rife. 

LXVIII. 

But now a bolder landscape meets the view : 
The Northern mountains rise upon the sight ; 
The lofty peak of mighty Benvenue, 
With bold Benledi towering on the right : 
0, how they loom in the clear northern light ! 
As seen from Venachar's pellucid wave ; 
But once Achray is past they sink from sight. 
While gropes the pilgrim in that living grave, — 
The Trosachs' gloomy glen, where birch and aspen wave.^ 



1 On advancing from the lowlands, at Callander, into the Highlands of Scotland, 
the traveller soon winds along by the shores of Loch Venachar for a distance of 
about four miles, with huge Benledi towering on his right, and passing over 
"Lanrick mead,"— the "muster-place" of Clan Alpin, — he will soon approach 
the shores of that lovely little Highland lake called Loch Achray. Leaving 
Achray, and going on towards Loch Katrine, one passes through that wonderful 
gorge called the Trosachs {Troschen, bristled territory). This mountain-pass is 
flanked on the left by Benveiuie, 2388 feet high, and on the right 1 y Benan. 
No one who has ever read Sir Walter Scott's description of this wild mountain- 
gorge can ever forget his wonderfully beautiful lines : 

" The western waves of ebbing day 
Rolled o'er the glen their level way ; 
Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
Was bathed in floods of living fire. 
But not a setting beam could glow 
"Within the dark ravine below. 
Where twined the path, in shadow hid, 



52 THE WANDERER; OR, 



LXIX. 



In this dark glen — the Minstrel's legends say — 
King James with two dark hounds pursued the deer 
When down, exhausted, sank his "gallant gray," 
Closing in sudden death his fleet career : ^ 
To his expiring steed James gave a tear ; 
Then sought to issue from this darksome way, 
Climbing yon precipice that towereth near, 
When at his feet Loch Katrine's wavelets play, — 
And lo ! a maiden's skiff glides lightly o'er the bay. 



Round many a rock}' pyramid, 

Shooting abruptly from the dell 

Its thunder-splintered pinnacle; 

Round many an insulated mass, 

The native bulwarks of the pass, 

Huge as the tower which builders vain 

Presumptuous piled on Shinar's plain, 

The rocky summits, split and rent. 

Formed turret, dome, or battlement, 

Or seemed fantastically set 

With cupola or minaret,— 

Wild crests as pagod ever decked. 

Or mosque of Eastern architect. 

Nor were these earth-born castles bare. 

Nor lacked they many a banner fair ; 

For, from their shivered brows displayed, 

Far o'er the unfathomable glade, 

All twinkling with the dew-drops sheen, 

The brier-rose fell in streamers green. 

And creeping shrubs of thousand dyes. 

Waved in the west-wind's summer sighs." 



1 It was in the Trosachs' gloomy glen that Fitz-James lost his over-ridden steed, 
his •' gallant gray," as related in The Lady of the Lake . — 



' Close on the hounds the hunter came. 
To cheer them on the vanished game ; 
But, stumbling in the rugged dell, 
The gallant horse exhausted fell. 
The impatient rider strove in vain 
To rouse him with the spur and rein ; 
For the good steed, his labors o'er. 
Stretched his stiff limbs to rise no more 
Then, touched with pity and remorse. 
He sorrowed o'er the expiring horse ; 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 53 

LXX. 

Now, when the Wanderer reached the selfsame shore, 
Where Katrine's wavelets round his feet did break, 
And stood where James Fitz-James ^ once stood before, 
When first he saw the Lady of the Lake, 
A long survey he lingeringiy did take. 
To feast his eyes upon this fairy land: 
A thousand memories in his bosom wake ; 
And long he gazed upon the mountains grand, 
That heave their foreheads bare^ to heaven on either 
hand. 

LXXI. 

Sad are the scenes where once a war-like clan 
Held patriarchal rule and sovereign sway ! 



' I little thought, when first thy rein 
I slacked upon the banks of Seine, 
That Highland eagle e'er should feed 
On thy fleet limbs, my matchless steed ; 
Wo worth the chase, wo worth the day, 
That cost thy life, my gallant gray ! ' " 



Before the present road was cut through the Trosachs, there was no way of 
advancing through the glen and reaching the foot of Loch Katrine, "excepting 
by a sort of ladder, composed of the branches and roots of trees." On chmbing 
the steep and high precipice, one reaches a sort of table-land at the foot of Loch 
Katrine, and that most beautiful of Highland lakes bursts at once upon the sight 
of the beholder, as if by magic. 

1 "Yes, Ellen, when disguised I stray 
In life's more low but happier way, 
'Tis under name which veils my power, 
Nor falsely veils, — for Stirling's tower 
Of yore the name of Snowdoun claims. 
And Normans call me James Fitz-James." 



Scott. 



While on the north through middle air, 
Benan heaved high his forehead bare." 



54 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

A miglity race, in one brief age's span, 
Like withered autumn leaves Avas swept away : 
Stern Time, who for weak man makes no delay, 
With his keen scythe cuts down both great and small 
Kingdoms and empires own his mighty sway, 
And thick as leaves in Vallombrosa fall 
Beneath the chilling breath of him who conquers all. 



Even the Bard whose words of living song- 
Embalmed the deeds of the proud race of yore, — 
Even he sank down beneath Time's sceptre strong ; 
And roams, a ghostly shade, the Stygian shore : 
All lovers of the Harp his loss deplore ! 
But his immortal song shall live for aye ; 
Ay, god-like Genius lives forevermore, — 
Defying time, that sweeps all else away ! 
But Genius soars aloft, owning no tyrant's sway. 

LXXIII. 

Now gazing on the waning autumn moon, 
High in blue heaven above this Highland lake, 
Or sailing o'er the wave at Cynthia's noon. 
What mingled feelings in the bosom wake ! 
Sad is the hour when we a farewell take 
Of these sweet scenes now tenantless and bare ! 
No winded horn doth now the stillness break, 
No maiden-guided boat now sweeps the mere, 
Conducting to yon isle with hospitable care. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 55 



LXXIV. 

What beauties these wild mountain scenes display, — 
Baring their naked charms to the blue sky ! 
The mountain torrents whirl their feathery spray 
From rock and cliff, and furiously rush by : 
The mountain eagle screams, and soars on high, 
Circling the crags where her young eaglets rest ! 
No prowling wolf nor hunter's foot comes nigh 
The cloud-cajDped peaks where she hath built her nest, — 
Where, gazing on the sun, her brood with peace is blest. 

LXXV. 

But whoso wanders here will rarely see 
The marks or signs of thrifty human life : 
The mountains loom in solemn majesty; 
The darksome glens with bird and beast are rife ; 
But England's tyrant hand, with ceaseless strife, 
Drove from these scenes the hardy race of yore : 
With ruthless war, — war to the very knife, — 
She drenched these smiling glens with human gore. 
And exiled their proud sons to pine on foreign shore. 

LXXYI. 

Look where glen Arklet's ^ desolated vale 
Spreads its broad bosom to the autumn sun ! 



1 Glen Arklet is a wild Highland pass, about five miles in length, lying between 
the head-waters of Lock Katrine and the upper portion of Loch Lomond. The 
glen is traversed by a rugged pathway, which, near the centre of the glen, skirts 
along the shore of the small lake Arklet. This lovely glen was the original resi- 
dence of the celebrated Rob Roy MacGregor ; and the hut was still to be seen, 



56 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

Here dwelt of yore a thousand armed Gael, 
But now the eye shall search in vain for one ! 
Here dwelt E-ob Eoy, by whom such feats were done 
As well became the theme of tale and lay; 
For when his bold career was well begun, 
His sword was foremost in each bloody fray, 
And England's strength was tried his fiery course to 
stay.i 

LXXYII. 

But wouldst thou see a scene of blood and death, 
Come where Glencoe^ its wildest aspect wears. 
And gaze upon the place with bated breath. 
And read the story that true history bears ! 



when the author traversed the glen, where Helen MacGregor, Rob Roy's wife, 
first saw the light. Tlie IMacGregors were once a powerful clan, and could 
muster, at one time in their history, a thousand fighting-men ; but the glen is 
now nearly depopulated ; only a very few stone-aiid-mud hovels remaining, which 
are only peopled by old men and women, with a few ragged children, who act 
as herdsmen. Beside the lonely way are the ruins of Inversnaid Fort, built in 
1713 by the British government to check and overawe the warlike MacGregors. 
Glen Arklet, like most of the Highland glens, is now nearly depopulated. Such 
was the policy of the British government, as the spirit of independence, and 
loyalty to the House of Stuart, often mustered the hardy Highlanders in warlike 
array. 

1 Rob Roy and his clan sometimes tried the strength of the British government; 
for the bold chieftain contrived to surprise the very fort that was built to bridle 
his power, and he disarmed the soldiers and destroyed the fortification. The fort 
was afterwards rebuilt, but was again taken and destroyed by the INIacGregors 
under a nephew of Rob Roy's, named Ghlune Dhu, just previous to the insurrection 
of 1745 in favor of the House of Stuart. 

- " In the Gaelic tongue, Glencoe signifies the Glen of Weeping ; and in truth 
that pass is the most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passes, — the very 
Valley of the Shadow of Death. INIists and storms brood over it through the 
greater part of the finest summer; and even on those rare days when the sun is 
bright, and when there is no cloud in the sky, the impression made by the land- 
scape is sad and awful. The path lies along a stream which issues from the most 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 57 

Here the brave Gael, with hospitable cares, 
Prepared the feast and spread the festive board : 
And with the sidier roy ^ his cnp he shares. 
And gave the food for Iiis own children stored, — 
Then saw their tender breasts with British weapons 
gored ! 

LXXVIII. 

Behokl these scenes, this desolated glen, 
Where dwelt of yore a patriarchal race ; 
AVhere Highland chieftains ruled their warlike men, 
And lovely Avoman moved in pristine grace ! 
Once growing childhood with a joyous face 
Eoamed these wild mountains with elastic tread; 
But now stern desolation fills the place, — 
For some were slaughtered, others wildly fled, 
And now the wild-flowers wave Avhere sleep the mur- 
dered dead.- 



sullen and gloomy of mountain pools. Huge precipices of nalved stone frown on 
botli sides. Even in July the streaks of snow may often be discerned in the rifts 
near the summits. All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin mark the head- 
long paths of torrents. Mile after mile the traveller looks in vam for the smoke 
of one hut, for one human form wrapped in a plaid, and listens in vain for the 
bark of a shepherd's dog or the bleat of a land). 3Iile after mile the only sound 
that indicates life is the faint cry of a bird of prey from some storm-beaten 
phniacle of rock. Of all the Highlanders, the Macdonalds of Glencoe had the 
least productive soil." — Macaulay, History of Emjland. 

1 Suiter roij, Anglice red-coat, British soldiers. 

- The following account of the horrible slaughter of Glencoe is extracted from 
the Enci/clopsedia Britannica. — 

" In the beginning of the year 1692 an action of nnexanipk-d barbarity disgraced the govern- 
ment of King William IH., in Scotland. In the August preceding a proclamation had been issued, 
offering an indemnitj' to such insurgents as should take the oaths to the King and Queen, on or 
before the last day of December : and the chiefs of such tribes as had been in arms for James 
soon after took advantage of the proclamation. But Alacdonald of Glencoe was prevented by 
accident rather than design from tendering his submission within the limited time. In the end 



58 THE WANDERER ; OR, 



LXXIX. 



Ill one dark night, tlirougli treacliery and guile, 

And perfidy that stains Britannia's name. 

By damned deceit, and many a cursed wile, 

A hundred Highland homes were wrapped in flame 



of December he went to Colonel Hill, who commanded the garrison in fort William, to take the 
oaths of allegiance to the government ; and the latter, having furnished him with a letter to Sir 
Colin Campbell, sheriff of the county of Argyll, directed him to repair immediately to Inverary, 
to make his submission in a legal manner before that magistrate. But the way to Inverary lay 
through almost impassable mountains, the season was extremely rigorous, and the whole country 
was covered with a deep snow. So eager, however, was Macdonald to take the oaths before the 
limited time should expire, that, though the road lay within half a mile of his own house, he 
stopped not to visit his own family, and, after various obstructions, arrived at Inverary. The 
time had elapsed, and the sheriff hesitated to receive his submission ; but Macdonald prevailed 
by his importunities, and even tears, in inducing that functionary to administer to him the oath 
of allegiance, and to certify the cause of his delay. At this time Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards 
Earl of Stair, being in attendance upon William as Secretary of State for Scotland, took advantage 
of Macdonald's neglecting to take the oath within the time prescribed, and procured from the 
King a warrant of military execution against that cliief and his whole clan. This was done at 
the instigation of the Earl of Breadalbane, whose lands the Glencoe men had plundered, and 
whose treachery to government in negotiating with the Highland clans Macdonald himself had 
exposed. The King was accordingly persuaded that Glencoe was the main obstacle to the pacifi- 
cation of the Highlands ; and the fact of the unfortunate chief's submission having been con- 
cealed, the sanguinary orders for proceeding to military execution against his clan were in 
consequence obtained. The warrant was both signed and countersigned by the King's own hand, 
and the Secretary urged the officers who commanded in the Highlands to execute their orders 
with the utmost rigor. Campbell of Glenlyon, a captain in Argyll's regiment, and two subalterns, 
were ordered to repair to Glencoe on the first of February with a hundred and twenty men. 
Campbell, being uncle to young Macdonald's wife, was received by the father with all manner of 
friendship and hospitality. The men were lodged at free quarters in the houses of his tenants, 
and received the kindest entertainment. Till the 13th of the month the troops lived in the utmost 
harmony and familiarity with the people ; and on the very night of the massacre the officers 
passed the evening at cards in Macdonald's house. In the night, Lieutenant Lindsay, with a party 
of soldiers, called in a friendly manner at his door, and was instantly admitted. Macdonald, 
while in the act of rising to receive his guest, was shot dead through the back with two bullets. 
His wife had already dressed ; but she was stripped naked by the soldiers, who tore tlie rings off 
her fingers with their teeth. The slaughter now became general, and neither age nor infirmity was 
spared. Some women, in defending their children, were killed ; boys imp'.oring mercy were shot 
dead by officers on whose knees they hung. In one place nine persons, as they sat enjoying them- 
selves at table, were biitchered by the soldiers. In Inverriggon, Campbell's own quarters, nine men 
were first bound by the soldiers, and then shot at intervals, one by one. Nearly forty persons were 
massacred by the troops ; and several who fled to the mountains perished by famine and the inr 
clemency of the season. Those who escaped owed their lives to a tempestuous night. Lieutenantr 
Colonel Hamilton, who had received the charge of the execution from Dalrymple, was on his 
march with four hundred men, to guard all the passes from the valley of Glencoe ; but he was 
obliged to stop by the severity of the weather, which proved the safety of the unfortunate clan. 
Next day he entered the valley, laid the houses in ashes, and carried away the cattle and spoil,, 
which were divided among the officers and soldiers." 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 59 

His own heart's-blood the host's Avarm hearth did 

stain, — 
Shed by the guest he sheltered from the storm ! 
Nor age nor sex were spared ; and all in vain 
Did childhood plead for mercy ; and the form 
Of lovely woman fell, slaughtered with babes new-born ! ^ 

LXXX. 

0, these are deeds whose memory cannot die! 
Their fame shall live forever ; and all men 
Shall read their history with tear and sigh, 
And marvel at such damned crimes ! and when 
The deeds of tyrants are told o'er, e'en then 
Thine own, Stair ! shall blackest seem to be ! 



1 " On the first of February a liiindred and twenty soldiers of Argyle's regi- 
ment, commanded by a captain named Campbell and a lieutenant named Lindsay, 

marched to Glencoe He [Captain Campbell] had every qualification for the 

service on which he was employed, — an unblushing forehead, a smooth, lying 
tongue, and a heart of adamant. He was also one of the few Campbells who were 
likely to be trusted and welcomed by the Macdonalds ; for his niece was married 
to Alexander, the second son of Maclan. The sight of the red-coats approaching 
caused some anxiety among the population of the valley. John, the eldest son 
of the chief, came, accompanied by twenty clansmen, to meet the strangers, and 
asked what this visit meant. Lieutenant Lindsay answered that the soldiers came 
as friends, and wanted nothing but (juarters. They were kindly received, and 

were lodged under the thatched roofs of the little community During 

twelve days the soldiers lived familiarly with the people of the glen His 

[Capt. Campbell's] host Inverrigen and nine other Macdonalds were dragged out 
of their beds, bound hand and foot, and murdered. A boy twelve years old clung 
round the Captain's legs, and begged hard for life. He would do anything ; he 
would go anywhere: a ruffian named Drummond shot the child dead." — Macau- 
lay, History of England. 

" About thirty corpses lay wallowing in blood on the dunghills before the doors. 
One or two women were seen among the number, and, a yet more fearful and 
piteous sight ! a little hand, which had been lopped in the tumult of the butchery 
from some infant." — Ibid. 



'60 THE WANDERER; OR, 

And pilgrims from all climes shall seek this glen, 
And, musing, sigh in human sympathy 
Tor those who slaughtered Avere, through Albion's per- 
lidy.i 

LXXXI. 

Behold these mighty peaks, these Scottish Alps, 
Whose lofty summits half the world survey; 
The bolts of heaven burst on their snowy scalps. 
Around their hoary heads the lightnings play; 
They glow beneath the sun's last setting ra}', — 
Catch and hurl back his early rising beam : 
Ages roll by, but they endure for aye; 
Unchanged, unchanging, evermore they gleam, — 
Types of the Infinite to mortal man tlie}^ seem ! 

LXXXII. 

darling Nature, — mother of mankind, — 
On thy sweet bosom let me drink my fill ! 
Thou tender nurse of every healthful mind, 

1 gaze upon thy glorious beauties, till 
The mind is wild with ecstasy ! and still 

I love thee more the more I gaze on thee ! 
And ever, in thy wildest aspect, will 
The rapture of the soul augment, and be 
A never-ending bond of sacred sympathy. 

1 " The extirpation planned by the Master of Stair was of a different kind. His 
design was to butclier the wliole race of tliieves, tlie wliole damnable race. Such 
was the language in which his hatred vented itself. He studied the geography of 
the wild country which surrounded Glencoe, and made his arrangements with 
infernal ikill." — Macaulay, Hisfori/ of Eiu/land. 



LIFE'S PILGBUIAGE. 61 

LXXXIII. 

Thus mused the Wauderer, as he gazed around 
On scenes more Avihl than fancy's wiklest dream ; 
And listened to the torrent's rushing sound, 
And watched the setting sun's departing beam: 
How in his fading rays the white peaks gleam. 
And deepening shadows sink upon the dells ! 
The vapors rise from many a mountain-stream, 
And on the ear their liquid music swells, 
Sweet as the mournful tones of far-off convent-bells. 

LXXXIV. 

Farewell ! a long farewell to these wild mountains ! 
The sun's last rays with purple peaks are blending: 
The mists, like ghosts, rise up from woodland fountains ; 
The startled deer are to the covert wending : 
The shades of night, on rock and glen descending, 
Shut from the view great Xature's Avondrous store : 
Xo Highland pipe to the wild scene is lending 
The charm or terror of the days of yore, — 
When plaided Chief and Gael wore target and claymore. 

LXXXV. 

How vain to say farewell to scenes like these ! 
Their beauties in the mind forever linger: 
The rocks, the glens, the flowers, and waving trees 
Are like wild harp-notes waked by fairy-flnger : 
In some sad moment ^Memory will fling her 
Enchanting spell around the soul once more ; 



62 THE WANDERER; OR, 

And at her touch Remembrance quick will bring her 
Long-buried treasures from each far-off shore, — 
And scenes of other days again are wandered o'er. 

LXXXVI. 

Descend we to the plain ! the hills grow dark ; 
The bat and owl their coverts now are leaving: 
The mountain-wolf, at times, is heard to bark; 
The rising mist the mountain's shroud is weaving : 
Sad are the moments, when, forever leaving 
These wondrous scenes, the footsteps linger still : 
The saddened soul unconsciously is grieving 
For that proud race, — "the children of the hill," — 
Whose struggles and whose wrongs the soul with sorrow 
fill. 

LXXXYII. 

League after league, and the wild hills recede; 
The northern skies their lofty summits shroud : 
From where their streams Loch Lomond's waters feed 
The eye turns back to gaze upon the cloud 
That floats above their peaks, like banner proud : 
In solemn grandeur evermore they stand ; 
Nor heed the northern blast, though fierce and loud ! 
The native bulwarks of a silent land, 
Where once, of plaided Gael, dwelt many a warlike 
band. 

LXXXYIII 

But England's strength and England's perfidy 
Subdued in slow detail each Hio-hland clan : 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 63 

By open force and covert treacliery 
Their smiling glens and lionies witli red gore ran : 
Nor age nor sex were spared! woman and man, 
And helpless childhood, felt alike the blow ! 
Snch damned deeds let him defend who can I 
Bnt Albion's brow for sucli with shame must glow, — 
And to recount their wrongs must my sad numbers flow. 

LXXXIX. 

Now fair Loch Lomond bursts upon the sight, 
Imbosomed in these hills, an inland sea! 
And pale Diana, empress of the night, 
Looks down upon the wave right lovingly : 
Her own round face reflected she may see 
Li'tlie broad mirror of this Highland lake; 
And soon afloat the pilgrim's bark shall be 
Gliding along, a farewell view to take; — 
And, oh ! within the soul what mingled feelings wake ! 

xc. 

The exiled bosom, doomed afar to roam, 
Will heave unconsciously with heavy sigh, 
As saddened memories of parted home 
Are wakened by some scene that greets the ejQ : 
It may be a wild-flower, or insect's cry. 
Or tree that casts a shadow as of yore ; 
Or even a soft breeze that whispers by 
May bear the thoughts back to that far-off shore 
Where rest the loved and lost, whom we may see no 
more. 



64 TEE WANDERER ; OR, 



XCI. 



The weary pilgrim, wandering alone, 
AVith these sad musings soothes a lonely heart ; 
But often at the thought of early home 
The silent tear within the eye will start; 
The bleeding bosom feels anew the smart 
Of secret wounds that wear the strength away : 
To one, from whom unkindly he did part, 
He wakes his unpremeditated lay, — 
And pours this farewell strain for his lost Ethel Grey: 



Ethel ! long years have rolled by since we parted ! 

And, divided from thee, fate compelled me to roam: 
Wherever I wander I sigh, broken hearted. 

And think of the days that were passed in thy home. 



Why is it thine image now hovers around me, — 
As alone on Loch Lomond's broad bosom I sail ? 

Has some mountain-spirit with magic-spell bound me, — 
Some mist-hidden spirit, some seer of the Gael? 



Why else this deep longing and wishing thee near me, 
While thoughts of the past fill my bosom with pain ? 

Why even this moment I feel thou canst hear me ! 
And, almost, I deem thou art with me again ! 

1 See the poem entitled "Ethel Grey," m "Poems and Essays" by the same 
author. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 65 



O, couldst thou sail with me this gem of the High- 
lands,^ 

Our boat should glide lightly its smooth waters o'er ! 
We would visit together these legended islands, 

And wander enraptured along the wild shore ! 



There is Inch Cailliach, — that is, Island of Women, ^ — 
So named from a convent it anciently bore : 

But later, it served them to bury their dead in : 

There sleep their brave chieftains and heroes of yore. 



1 Loch Lomond (" the lake full of Islands") is, without question, the gem of 
Scottish lakes. " This noble lake," says Scott, in Eoh lioi/, " boasting innumerable 
beautiful islands of every vai'ying- form and outline which fancy can frame, — its 
northern extremity narrowing until it is lost among dusky and retreating moun- 
tains, while, gradually widening as it extends to the southward, it spreads its 
base around the indentures and promontories of a fair and fertile land, — affords 
one of the most surprising, beautiful, and sublime spectacles in nature." The 
length of Loch Lomond is about twenty-tiu-ee miles ; its breadth, where greatest, 
at the southern extremity is five miles ; its northern extremity gradually narrows 
to a prolonged stripe of water, reaching far away among the dusky mountains of 
the north. 

2 Inch Cailliach, the Island of Women, so called from its having been the site 
of a nimnery. The church belonging to the nunnery was long used as a place of 
worship ; scarcely any vestiges of it now remain ; the burial-ground was the 
place of sepulture of several neighboring clans, and is still used ; the Lairds of 
Macgregor, and other families claiming descent from the old Scottish King- 
Alpine, were buried here ; and their monuments are still visible. Scott, m "The 
Lady of the Lake," describing the "Fiery Cross" which was prepared by that 
half-Druid priest, Brian, says, — 

" The shafts and limbs were rods of yew. 
Whose parents in Inch Cailliach wave 
Their shadows o'er Clan-Alpine's grave, 
And, answering Lomond's breezes deep. 
Soothe many a chieftain's endless sleep." 



66 THE WANBEREE; OR, 



How gladly with thee I would visit each ruin, 
Whose wind-broken battlements sink in decay : 

We would visit Glen Luss, and Eossdoe,^ and Gle^'i 
Fruin, 
The scene of that horrible Highland affray.^ 



When haughty Clan-Alpine invaded Glen Fruin, 

The Colquhouns' proud pipes to their slogan replied 



1 Luss is situated on the western shore of Loch Lomond, and near Luss i& 
Rossdoe; from these places some of the most enclianting views meet tlie eye. Near 
Rossdoe is a tower of the ancient Castle of Luss, the last heiress of which married 
Colquhoun of Colquhoun. A little farther on are the ruins of the castle of 
Banachra, overhanging the approach to Glen Fruni. Near by is the lofty hill of 
Dunfion, that is, hill of Fingal, which tradition says was one of the hunting-seats 
of the mighty Fingal, the father of the blind bard Ossian, — " Fingal, who was 
terrible in battle, the king of streamy Morven !" — Ossiax. 

2 It was in Glen Fruin, or the Glen of Sorrow, that the celebrated battle took 
place between the Macgregors and Colquhouns. There had been a long and 
deadly feud between the Macgregors and the Laird of Luss, head of the family 
of Colquhoun. Both parties met at length in the vale of Glen Fruin. The battle 
was obstinate and bloody ; but in the end the Macgregors were victorious, taking 
many prisoners, and leaving two hundred of the Colquhouns dead upon the field. 
It is said that, after the battle, the Macgregors murdered about eighty youths, who 
had been led by curiosity to view the fight. Scott, in his " Introduction to Rob 
Roy," says : "The MacGregors impute this cruel action to the ferocity of a single 
man of their tribe, renowned for size and strength, called Dugald, Ciar MJior, or 
the great mouse-colored man. He was JIacGregor's foster-brother, and the chief 
committed the youths to his charge, with directions to keep them safely till the 
affray was over. Whether fearful of their escape, or incensed by some sarcasms 
which they threw on his tribe, or whether out of mere thirst of blood, this savage, 
while the other MacGregors were engaged in the pursuit, poniarded his helpless 
and defenceless prisoners. "When the chieftain, on his return, demanded where 
the youths were, the Ciar Mlior drew out his bloody dirk, saying in Gaelic, "Ask 
that, and God save me !" The latter words allude to the exclamation which his 
victims used when he was murdering them. Rob Roy was descended from this 
Ciar Mlior. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 67 

But the Pine-bannered ^ warriors completed their ruin, 

Laid their dwellings in ashes and humbled their pride. 



They came as the cataracts rush from the mountains, 
When the flood-gates of heaven their waters outpour ; 

Baptizing Glen Fruin with dark crimson fountains 
Of blood that flowed freely from dirk and claymore. 

9. 

0, wild was the coronach - wailed in Glen Fruin, — 
The loud lamentation poured over the slain, — 

As widow and maiden bemoaned the sad ruin, 

And wept o'er the dead that encumbered the plain ! 



We would sail o'er this lake by the autumn moon lighted, 
And climb up Ben Lomond that towers so high ; ^ 



1 •• The sept of MacGregor claimed descent from Gregor, or Gregorious, third 
son, it is said, of Alpin King of Scots, wiio flourislied about 787. Hence their 
original patronymic is Mac Alpine, and they were usually termed clan-Alpine." 
The cognizance on their banner was a Pine-tree. 

- The coronach was a wild expression of sorrow and lamentation, which, among 
the Highlanders and other primitive peoples, the females poured forth over the 
bodies of the dead. Sometimes only moiu-nful slu-ieks and sobs were to be heard 
and sometimes they uttered the praises of the departed in mournful tones and 
loud lamentations, coupled with articulate words of praise, and despair for the 
irreparable loss of the departed. The Ululoo which the old Irishwomen utter 
at a wake will remind the classical reader of the Ululatus of the Romans, and 
bring to mmd those lines of the .Eneid, descriptive of the funeral rites to Poly- 
dorus : — 

Et circum Iliad es crinem de more solutse: 

Inferimus tepido spumantia cymbia lacte, 

Sang'uinis et sacri pateras : animamque sepulchro 

Condimus, et magna supremum voce ciemus. 
3 Ben Lomond rises 3158 feet above the level of the lake. 



68 THE WANDERER; OR, 

AVe would visit Glen Luss and Eossdoe, all delighted 
To gaze on those scenes that enrapture the eye. 

11. 

We would wander away to the braes of Balquhither,^ 
And roam through the deep glens and valleys so fair; 

And gladly I 'd gather the wild mountain-heather 
And deck with its purple thy dark raven hair. 



Ah, these are sweet dreams, but how sad the awaking ! 

Alas ! I must sail o'er Loch Lomond alone ! 
While my heart for thy loss and thy absence is break- 
ing, 

And the breeze from the mountain re-echoes mv moan. 



0, little I deemed that forever we parted, 

When saying adieu by our own Northern stream ; '^ 

Or thought that for thee I must die broken-hearted, 
And find our past joy was but youth's golden dream ! 

XCII. 

The heart, sad mourner, thus is taught to grieve, 
And feel each deep wound made to bleed anew; 



1 The braes of Balquhither lie to the northeast of the head of Loch Lomond. 
In the churchyard of Balquhither. or Balquidder, Rob Roy was interred, beneath 
a stone, marked only with a fir-tree crossed by a sword, supporting a crown. 
"The braes of Balquhither" have been much celebrated in song. They are the 
subject of a charming song by Robert Tannahill, a Scottish poet of the eighteenth 
century, who was the peer of Burns. 

- The Hudson, or North River. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 69 

Learning, full late, what folly to believe 
That fairest bosoms e'er may prove the true : 
How often is the fond heart made to rue 
Its overweening trust in woman's breast : 
Wiser by far to shun than to pursue 
A prize which, gained, may bar us from all rest : 
Alas, in Hymen's bonds how few are truly blest ! 

XCIII. 

If from itself the aching heart could flee 
To some unheard-of clime beyond the main. 
Forgetting what its cause of grief might be, 
And, all unburdened, then return again; 
How sweet to be relieved of all its pain, 
And, wiser grown, begin life's course anew: 
Bearing no echo of the old refrain. 
And choosing only but the good and true. 
How wisely might we then life's thorny path pursue. 

XCIV. 

The green leaves wither long before they fall. 
The wounded bird will strive to reach her nest, 
The fresh green ivy shields the ruined wall. 
The Wanderer toils on, though needing rest : 
The fainting mother gives her babe the breast, — 
Yielding the drops which her own life will drain, — 
Blessing her offspring, though herself unblest : 
The hare, though wounded, crawls along the plain ; — 
And thus the aching heart beats on, and bears its pain. 



70 THE WANDERER; OR, 

xcv. 

But on, forever on! The acliing breast, 
Like giiiity conscience, from itself would flee : 
And, most of all, it dreads to be at rest, 
But ever drivetli on riglit furiously: 
As an abandoned ship on stormy sea 
Is driven on by the relentless gale, 
Unconscious where its reckless course may be, 
Winding a devious way Avith rudder frail, — 
The s^oort of every blast that strikes its wind-rent sail. 

xcvi. 

The hills recede ; and soon the lowland plains, 
Eich from the peasant's toil, salute the eye ; 
And fertile fields, where happy Lowland swains 
With Lowland lassies oft go trooping by. 
These sights awaken in the breast a sigh 
For him who sweetly sung fair Scotia's praise; 
And as the feet to winding Ayr draw nigh. 
The lips involuntary song will raise, — 
And, half-unconsciously, we chant his deathless lays. 

XCVII. 

Cold is that breast, dear Burns! that can roam o'er 
Thy native vales nor heave a sigh for thee! 
O, who can roam along Ayr's winding shore 
And fail, in the mind's eye, thy form to see ! 
W^here'er I turn thy spirit seems to be 
The very soul and genius of the place : 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 71 

The very breezes cliant thy minstrelsy; 
In every maid I see some fancied grace, — 
Some charm that half-recalls thy Highland Mary's face. 

XCVIII. 

Cold is that breast indeed that doth not thrill 
Beneath thy magic strain, thy rustic lyre ! 
Nature herself did thy rapt spirit fill 
With heaven-born genius, with celestial fire ! 
Shame on the sons of wealth who saw thee tire, 
And sink beneath the weight of want and care ! 
But Xature drew thee to her bosom nigher ; 
And at thy death wept all her flowerets fair, — 
And mournful breezes sighed along the banks of Ayr ! 



'T is said, that, when the Poet dies. 

Great Nature mourns her gifted child, 
And Nature's various voices rise 

In solemn requiem, sweet and Avild ; 
And that the Poet's loved abodes, 

His sylvan haunts by wood and stream, 
Are vocal with wild spirit-odes, 

Like the weird music of a dream, — 



That dark, sad pines on hill-tops lone. 
And murmuring brooks in valleys deep, 

For the dead Minstrel sigh and moan. 
And murmur dirges round his sleep : 



72 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

The low soft winds, in mournful sighs, 
Breathe out their sorrows o'er his head ; 

And sorrowing tears, from cold gray skies. 
Drop down upon his lowly bed. 



The brave old trees that stretched their arms 

To shield him with their grateful shade, — 
Ah ! who shall celebrate their charms 

When their loved Bard is lowly laid ? 
When their green leaves, all sere and brown, 

And whirling in the " dance of death," — 
To the cold earth go sailing down, 

Scattered by autumn's chilling breath, — ■ 



0, who shall celebrate their fall, 

And sing their beauty as they fade. 
When he, so loved, and loving all. 

In the dark, silent tomb is laid! 
'T is meet that flowers distil their tears, 

And breathe sweet perfumes round the tomb 
Of the loved Bard, who through long years 

Has sung their beauty and their bloom. 

5. 

'T is meet the wondrous flaming stars 

Shed their kind influence round his name \ 

For he, with all a Poet's cares. 

Has sung of their mysterious flame. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 73^ 

cliilcl of Xature ! son of song ! 

High-priest in Nature's holy fane ! 
'T is meet that Nature's voices strong 

Should echo back the Poet's name. 



Let distant thunder's dying groan 

Mourn Nature's gifted child of song! 
Let lio-htninsrs blaze from zone to zone, 



To li^ht his fleeting shade alon 



And let great Nature's voices raise 
One mighty anthem deep and long; 

To celebrate, with Nature's praise, 
Her dying Bard ! her Son of Song ! 

XCIX, 

Thus sang the Pilgrim, as he roamed along 
Through glens and vales that made e'en exile dear:. 
And ever as he went some plaintive song 
He chanted forth his lonely way to cheer: 
Lingering at times the jocund birds to hear, — ■ 
For unto him their song was e'er a joy ! 
Often his hand would wipe away a tear ; 
Not that their notes his spirit could annoy. 
But they recalled the days when he was but a boy. 

Co 

Thus wandering thoughtfully around the land, 
He stayed his steps by many a poet's tomb: 



74 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

There, musing on tlieir themes lofty and grand^ 
Sweet meditation in his breast found room, 
And softened by degrees his spirit's gloom : 
]S"ow there was one he longed much to see, — 
One who in life sustained no common doom, — 
One whose sad strain of lofty minstrelsie 
■Owed much to heaven-born genius, — much to f renesie ! 

CI. 

And when the Wanderer approached the spot, 
Where erst Childe Harold drank life's cup of woe,^ 
He longed much to view each nook and grot, 
And felt within his breast no common glow: 
He paced the scene with pensive step and slow, 
While shades of varied feeling marked his face : 
O'er sad Childe Harold's wrongs, while here below, 
In silence mused he for a lengthened space ; 
Then thus apostrophized the spirit of the place : — 

CII. 

wondrous Bard ! beside thy tomb I stand. 
And bow my head and breathe tli}^ noble name ! 
Thou noblest minstrel of thy native land, 
Thou blazing star on her bright scroll of fame ! 



1 Newsteacl Abbey, celebrated as the residence of Lord Byron. It is situated 
in Nottino-hamshire, 136 miles northwest of London. It was once an Augustin 
monastery, founded by Henry II. At the suppression of the monasteries, it was 
granted to the ancestor of Lord Byron by Henry VIII. The genius and misfor- 
tunes of Lord Byron have invested the place with a peculiar charm, and have 
Tendered it a celebrated and sacred spot for all time to come. 



LIFE'S PILGEIMAGE. 75 

Well may she cherish now thy noble name. 
And guard thy ashes Avitli undying love ; 
And proudly vaunt her of thy lofty strain, 
Eising so clear her tuneful choir aboA^e, — 
'The very nightingale of her Pierian grove ! 

cm. 

But while I bow before thy sacred shrine, 
I feel the blush of shame that burns my cheek: 
Yet for no word or thought or deed of mine ; 
For I have loved thee more than words can speak : 
But I must blush, that woman's tongue could wreak 
Her damned calumnies upon thy name ! 
Yes, blush for shame that she could stoop to seek 
With slanderous lies to blur thy lustrous fame ! 
And she for native land my own dear land can claim. 

CIVe 

My pen refuses her dark name to write ; 
I shrink from placing it beside thine own ; 
The page by thy illustrious name made bright 
Would be by hers with calumny o'ersown ! 
Enough, and more, that I am forced to own 
That countrywoman of mine own should be 
So lost to womanhood and shameless grown 
As to have belched her loathsome filth at thee : 
Alas for woman's name, Avlien we such sight must see ! 

CY. 

0, may the curse of Cain, or something worse. 
Fall with full force on her remorseless head 



76 THE WANBEBER; OB, 

AVho sought, with ruthless soul, to fix such curse — 
Such damning curse — upon our clearest dead ! ^ 
Ay, Avith her loathsome talons she would shred 
Fame's fairest chaplet from thy pallid brow ! 
Spreading her lies all broadcast, without dread 
Lest her remorseless soul in shame should bow, 
Or that men blast her with just curse, — as I do now. 

CVIo 

But rest, thou injured shade, and rest in peace ! 
Her venomed shafts have missed their destined aim: 



' The unwomanly and indecent attack of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe upon Lord 
Byron has rarely, if ever, been equalled in the annals of literature. The charge 
was so base and malicious upon its face, that all fair and honorable-minded people 
discredited it at the start ; and after having considered it calmly as was possible, 
and having weighed the pretended proofs, it was wholly disbelieved, and recoiled 
with terrible force upon the head of the inventor. Here is what was said of it by 
Mr. Charles C. Hazewell, a Boston journalist, ten years after its first appearance: — 

'■It is just ten years since Mrs. Beecher Stowe made her outrageous attack on Lord Byron, 
charging him with having had his half-sister, Mrs. Augusta Leigh, for his mistress. The foul 
charge was speedily proved to he as baseless as it icas base, though it is always a difficult task to 
prove a negative ; and now some letters have been discovered, the contents of which would have 
disposed of it completely, had it not been disposed of in 1S69 favorably for the reputation of the 
author of ' Childe Harold.' The world reyarded the attack icith contempt, and it will not be dis- 
pleased to see that its view of the matter has been justified by time. It is almost invariably just in 
its judgments, is the world, — to the dead." 

Such is the severe and just condemnation against Mrs. Stowe that Mr. Hazewell 
published to the world in the columns of his paper in August, 1879, ten years after 
her base attack ; and all the world coincides in the correctness of his decision. Xo 
man living was more competent to judge of the question than he ; for, as was said 
of him at his death, "in his knowledge of history, ancient and modern, he was 
surpassed by none of his contemporaries, in this country or in Europe. He was a 
walking encyclopaedia of historical and biographical knowledge, and with the 
literature of the past, and of his own age, he was acquainted as few men have 
been." Xow, considering the dark and adulterous stains that so soon after black- 
ened Mrs. Stowe's own family name,— stains that heaps Of gold and floods of 
hired eloquence could not whiten in the least. — does it not seem as if a just and 
all-wise Providence has taken it upon himself to piuiish her "base and baseless 
charge" by giving her to drink of her own vile cup? 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. IT 

The blessed hand of Justice did not cease 
To guard thy noble and illustrious name, — 
And crown it with fresh laurel-wreath of fame ! 
But woe to her who mixed the poisoned cup, 
For even-handed Justice seized the same 
And pressed it to her lips and bade her sup ! 
And to the very dregs she drank her poison up. 

CVII. 

To welter in a fallen brother's shame 
Seems retribution meet for such foul crime ! 
Let her who would assoil thy lustrous name 
Wipe from her brother's the vile filth and slime ! ^ 



1 It is a painful thing to speak of the crimes and moral fall of an eminent man 
or woman. To show, beyond a doubt, that the language of the text is no poetical 
fiction, but that it is stern and mournful truth, I shall quote a few of the many- 
opinions and utterances that have been made public by some of the most eminent 
persons, and by some of the leading newspapers of the land. These utterances all 
relate to the great scandals and immoralities that overshadow the name of the 
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. They have pervaded the moral atmosphere of the 
land for years ; and, resisting all attempts to prove them false, they have done 
an irreparable injury to the cause of morality, and to the Christian religion. 

The following appeared in the editorial column of the Boston Journal of 3Iarch 
4, 187r, :_ 

"• 3rr. Rowen has been subjected to considerable hostile criticism in various 
quarters because of the vagueness of his charges against Mr. Beecher, and his 
persistent witholding of the names of the other parties implicated. His statement 
submitted to the Plymouth Examining Committee, and finally published in full, is 
a minute and circumstantial statement of crimes charged against ]VIr. Beecher, 
which has at least a truthful appearance, and which, if false, might easily be so 
proven by the parties named in it, — Mr. Claflin, IMr. Freeland, and 3Ir. Johnson, 
all of whom are Mr. Beecher's warm friends. ]Mr. Bowen's rehearsal of what he 
has done for Plymouth Church shows that he has something at stake in that church 
as well as 3Ir. Beecher : and his statement of what he has done for 'Sir. Beecher 
shows that his conduct has not been altogether malignant. His particularity of 
accusations is simply horrible, and the only point at which it is wanting is the 
omission of names and dates. On this point there is something that ought to be 



78 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Ah, endless task ! too heavy for all time ! 

His priestly robes are soiled and stained for aye ! 

Not all the waters of a rushing Rhine 



borne in mind. When Mr. Bowen met Plymouth Church on Wednesday evening 
he reiterated his desire to Iceep secret the names of the women implicated by the 
^statements he had to make. He then made the following in'oposition, which we 
quote from the verbatim report of the proceedings : — 

" ' It is certainly no benefit to me to be silent ; but I must and will protect the names ot other 
persons to the best of my power. But if you still demand all the names and particulars, and if 
Mr. Beecher demands them — do you, sir? (turning to Mr. Beecher) — 

"' J/r. Beecher. When you get through I will answer the question. 

" ' Mr. Bowen (continuing). But if you still demand all the names and particulars, and if Mr. 
Beecher demands them, I will do this : I will to-night, at this moment, meet Mr. William McKay, 
A. H. Garbut, and S. V. White, alone or in the presence of Mr. Beecher, in the adjoining room, 
and there give to them the facts in my possession which long ago convinced me Mr. Beecher is an 
adulterer. I shall only require that these gentlemen shall preserve the names and identifying 
circumstances secret : and I shall make no request of them for any action in the case, leaving 
that to their discretion and to yours. Will you accept this offer?' 

" Here was an offer on Mr. Bowen's part to go before a committee of Mr. 
Beecher's friends, and in Mr. Beecher's ])resence, and give the names and par- 
ticulars which have been sought for with so much appearance of eagerness. The 
offer was fair to all parties ; why was it not accepted ? Until this question can be 
satisfactorily answered, a cloud must rest upon the sincerity of the Plymouth 
Church proceedings. Here were the 'bottom facts' almost reached, but ]Mr. 
Beecher refused to go farther. Why?" — Boston Journal. 
The following convincing evidence is taken from AVestern papers : — 
"In the course of a recent Friday evening meeting the Rev. Dr. Fairfield of 
Mansfield, Ohio, in a very pointed manner alluded to the troubles besetting 
Plymouth Church and its pastor. His address was afterward published in a local 
paper, when it appeared that he did not speak all he had written. The portion of 
his address which was thus kept from the audience in the lecture-room, and after- 
ward given to a wide circle of people, included these words : — 

"'You will bear me witness that it is the first time that I have ever directly referred to it in these 
walls. But matters are culminating, and I do not abuse my privilege in what I am about to say. 
I happen to know tlie facts in the case ; I never wrote a line for the public eye till I did. It is not 
with me a matter of opinion or behef, but of absolute knowledge. I have no more assurance of 
the facts of Divine Revelation, upon which I risk my eternal salvation, than of the facts in this 
case. There are men in Mansfield who will live to confess to me the foil}' of their words and deeds, 
simply because the.y did not know what I knew. And when they come to know, as they will, they 
will read what I have written and published, and wonder only that I wrote so calmly and moder- 
ately of one who will be ultimately and universally conceded to be the most infamous character 
of the nineteenth century. And men who stand up for him to-day will labor hard to forget that 
they did so, and struggle to their utmost to conceal the fact from their children and children's 
children. They deserve the profoundest commiseration, for the facts cannot always be hid, and 
Tvhere they are known there will be but one opinion concerning them.' " 



LIFE'S PILGBIMAGE. 79 

Could wash those foul and filthy stains away ! 
Come death, and Lethe^s stream, and hide them from 
the day. 

CVIII. 

Oh, Christianity must bow the head, 
And deeply blush at mention of his name ! 
Her own high-priest, who hath her altars fed, 
By his own deeds hath covered her with shame ! ^ 



1 " It has come to be the fashion to describe those who disapprove of the proceed- 
ings in the Brooklyn case as ' enemies ' of Mr. Beecher and Plymouth Church. 
Mr. Beecher's own speeches afford niunerous illustrations of this summary classi- 
fication. But it is becoming more evident daily that the number of those who do 
not believe that all has been done that should be in the way of investigation, or 
that all the facts have been made public which the public has a right to know, is 
very large and respectable. Leading Congregationalists are restive under the 
imputation which now rests ixpon their system of government and discipline ; all 
the chief organs of the denomination unite in denoimcing the conclusions of the 
Advisory Council as impotent, inconclusive, and subversive of Congregationalism ; 
and, excepting from those who long ago committed themselves to Mr. Beecher's 
cause, we have no word of approval or apology for the strange decisions of the 
Council. When the advisory body broke up, and the members composing it had 
reached their homes, it became evident that an attempt was to be made to carry 
public opinion by storm. Eulogies upon Mr. Beecher, enthusiastic expositions of 
the decisions of the Council, bitter attacks upon Andover, and mysterious hints 
of satisfactory knowledge gathered in some occult way, were made the burden of 
pulpit discourses. These mysterious hints, later on, took shape in a story too 
revolting to be spread before the readers of a respectable journal, unless in the 
shape of sworn evidence, — and whose principal feature is that it does not explain 
the charges against Mr. Beecher, while it contributes fresh material for unpleasant 
surmises. But public opinion has refused to be taken by storm. It does not yet 
imderstand why the bottom facts remain undisclosed, why downright and unquali- 
fied charges are met in silence, or why Mr. Beecher refused to accept INIr. Bowen's 
offer to acquaint him with the names and particulars which he so much desired to 
know. These are questions that are not to be satisfactorily settled by denunciation 
or the calling of names." — Boston Journal of March 14, 1876. 

Some three weeks later the following, which explains itself, appeared in the 
journals of the day : — 

New York, April 2, 1876. 

" Notwithstanding the present apparent failure to elicit the truth by placing a 
deadlock on the Beecher and Bowen investigation, it looks as though the most 



80 THE WANDERER; OR, 

His heart of lechery, O let her blame, — 
His black heart that for others felt no ruth! 
His victim he could leave to sink in shame ; ^ 
And hide his crimes with plausible untruth: 
O sight deplorable, for Virtue and for Youth! 



desperate efforts of Mr. Beecher's friends will fail to qiiiet the demands for the 
trnth. It transpires that during the last week Egbert C. Smith and Prof. Meade 
of Andover have been in Brooklyn busily engaged in endeavoring to get at facts 
from the principal parties, especially women whose testimony is likely to have 
conclusive weight in the Plymouth Church scandal. Mrs. Tilton, Mrs. Bradshaw, 
and Mrs. Richards have been questioned, and while they refuse to make explicit 
statements to Messrs. Smith and Meade, two of them at least, Mrs. Richards and 
Mrs. Bradshaw, have declared their willingness to give their testimony. Rev. Mr. 
Dexter of Boston has been consulted in regard to the present aspect of the scandal. 
Mrs. Bradshaw of Brooklyn has made aflidavit that at three different times, 
between July, 1870, and July, 1874, Mrs. Tilton confessed to her, giving all the 
circumstances of her long-continued adultery with Mr. Beecher, and that after 
Mrs. Tilton quit her home in 1874 to take up her residence with Mr. Ovington's 
family, she talked with Mrs. Bradshaw, not denying the truth of her former asser- 
tions, but admitting them, and arguing that she was justified in taking the course 
she did. Mrs. Bradshaw made this affidavit, which is brief, and does not contain 
any more facts than are given herewith, that it might be used by Mr. Bowen in his 
defence before the Special Investigating Committee of Plymouth Church, on the 
charge that he had slandered the pastor. Mrs. Bradshaw mtrusted the document 
to her husband, who took it before the committee. While the committee were by 
themselves discussing whether the testimony should be received, Mr. Bradshaw 
was questioned as to what he knew about the case. He said that he knew what his 
wife did, and he believed it all." 

1 Although Mrs. Tilton's character and home were ruined through Mr. Beecher's 
instrumentality, she taking refuge with friends on whom she was to be, apparently, 
dependent, yet it does not appear that Mr. Beecher lent her any aid, either moral 
or substantial ; but, on the contrary, his public utterances in regard to her rather 
tended to belittle her, and cast a stigma upon her character. His Society very 
ostentatiously raised his yearly salary to $ 100,000 ; as if intending by that means 
to impose upon public opinion, and cover with the glitter of gold the charged 
adulteries and crimes which they had struggled in vain to disprove, although it was 
strongly hinted that the jury had been bribed by them and the court overawed. 
Indeed, one member of the business meeting that voted to raise for Mr. Beecher a 
yearly salary of $100,000 was very barefaced in his utterances. He said: — 

" There is just this one thing to say further, and this is the moral effect of the attitude of Ply- 
mouth Church in standing firm to defend itself. Let it be understood that Plymouth Church 
stands 3,000 strong, in every hand a spear ; and in the future there will be hesitation before men 
rush upon those spears." (Applause.) 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 81 



CIX. 



Woe, woe to sweet Eeligion when her priests 
Such black examples to the world can give ! 
And with their hands impure they spread the feasts 
And sacraments to bid the sad soul live ! ^ 



1 Not only did Mr. Tiltoii and 3Ir. Moulton charge Mr. Beecher with criminal 
intimacy with Mrs. Tilton, but 3Ir. Bowen openly charged him with similar inti 
macy in other cases. 

The following is copied verbatim from the text of Mr. Bowen's charges, made 
before the Committee of Plymouth Church, as it appeared in the journals of 
March, 1876. Commenting upon the unfair composition of that Committee, Mr. 
Bowen said : — 

"The members of your committee have been carefully selected for the purpose of being such 
that Mr. Beecher could control its action. Mr. Beecher himself is your chairman, Mr. Beecher's 
brother is a second memljer, Mr. Beecher's assistant pastor as a third member, Mr. Beecher's pub- 
lisher and employee as a fourth member, Mr. Beecher's astute attorney as a fifth member, and 
every one of the nine has already expressed his opinion that Mr. Beecher is innocent and that I 
am jruilty. This is no impartial court, and I appeal with confidence from your decision already 
recorded against me, to that of some proper and impartial tribunal. 

" I now proceed to answer your demand for the evidence which has convinced me of Mr. 
Beecher's guilt. You have demanded everything without reserve, allowing me no assurance that 
the names of the parties concerned should be protected. 

" You know, and Mr. Beecher knows, that it would be an outrage to publish those names, and 
yet you take advantage of that fact to make a virtue of loudly demanding what you know must 
not and cannot be given. You know that I have twice said to you that I never could be base 
enough to allow these names to be bruited before the world, and still you repeat your demand. 

" I will give you, though not a proper tribunal, the essential facts and nothing more. I have 
told you I had no possible doubt of Mr. Beecher's adultery and perjury. The evidence has come 
to me in various ways. Long before I received the confessions of which I will speak, not I alone, 
but many others of the leading members of the society were told about the extremely suspicious 
relations of Mr. Beecher with certain ladies of his church. It was a matter of common talk and 
excited the gravest apprehension. 

" On one occasion, and in connection with a lady whom I will not name here, so serious were 
those reports, and so extreme seemed the danger, that half a dozen of the leading members of the 
society met together one Sunday, and after talking the subject over, one of them, not myself, was 
deputed to call on Mr. Beecher privately and tell him frankly what was the nature of these stories. 
This gentleman told me the next day, and I doubt not told the others, that Mr. Beecher was greatly 
embarrassed at what he had to say, and acted as it appeared to him like a guilty man. He also 
said that Mr. Beecher promised that there should be no further occasion for such scandal, and 
that he would use his influence to have the ladj' removed to a distant part of the country. This 
gentleman said that he earnestly advised Mr. Beecher never to admit or deny anything on this 
subject, but to be absolutely silent. It was afterwards a matter of remark among us that :Mr. 
Beecher continued his intimacy with her, and she did not leave the city. 

" For a long time not I only, but many others of the friends of Mr. Beecher, continued in this 
state of anxiety about him. At last there came to my knowledge evidence of his guilt which 



82 THE WANDERER; OR, 

God, can Charity herself forgive 
Such damned dissembling in the heart of man ? 
If fair Eeligion would such stabs o'erlive, 
Her own false priesthood she must freely ban ! 
And Beecher's darkened name be cursed by God and 



astonished and overwhelmed me, and which I was compelled to carry as a weary and secret 
burden. 

" More than ten years ago, under peculiar circumstances which I will relate fully before a 
tribunal constituted for secrecy, as well as for impartial judgment, I received from a lady whom, 
under the circumstances, I was compelled to believe, in several interviews with her, full and 
explicit confessions of adultery with Mr. Beecher. 

" The lady told me that on the first occasion Mr. Beecher visited her at her own residence, while 
all the other members of the family were absent, and there for the first time had criminal inter- 
course with her. 

" After the first act of criminality Mr. Beecher professed great penitence and sorrow, and said 
he was prompted to do wrong by a sudden and uncontrollable impulse of passion ; and asked her 
forgiveness, and promised never to wrong her again. 

" A few days afterward, as she told me, he called on her again, spoke of his ardent love for her, 
which was greatly increased b.v what had occurred, and again had criminal intercourse with her. 

" On both of these occasions, as she asserted, Mr. Beecher accomplished his purpose bj' his 
superior strength, against her most earnest protestations, while she was so paralyzed with fright 
that she lost her strength and consciousness. 

"Mr. Beecher declared, as she told me, that he had always been unhappy in his marriage rela- 
tions, that he did not really love his wife, and never had, that he loved and admired her very 
much, and wished she were his wife. 

" After this Mr. Beecher had, she told me, frequent intercourse with her, not only at her resi- 
dence, but at Mr. Beecher's own house, and in his own study, adjoining the lecture-room of his 
church. She said that she often met him in the latter place after the morning prayer-meetings 
were over. 

" She told me on one occasion he gave her the key to the study door, and told her to go in and 
lock the door, and not to open it to any one until he shoiild come and give a peculiar signal, when 
she was to let him in. Tliese relations with Mr. Beecher continued for a year or more. 

" She told me about the time they ceased she happened on one occasion to see another lady well 
known in Plymouth Church going into the side door of the church at a time when there were no 
meetings. There she followed this lady, heard her enter the study and shut the door. She went 
up to the door and tried to open it, but found it locked." 

1 That such hypocrites are cursed by God who can doubt? That they are 
cursed by men, such paragraphs as the following, which I have copied from 
various newspapers, sufficiently attest : — 

New York, Jan. 29, 187P. " Capt. Duncan, who has been so prominently connected with the 
investigation of the Beecher scandal, has sent in his resignation as a member of the church, and 
the other members of his family, to the number of six, having followed his example. The 
grounds for their resignation is that they cannot conscientiously belong to a church in the pastor 
of which they had no confidence." 

Despatch to the Boston Jotirnal : — 

"Judge Van Cott, counsel for Mrs. Moulton, who has returned from Washington, said last 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 83 



ex. 



But thy dear name, Byron, shall be sung 
And sounded far by loftier harps than mine; 
And, deeply honored, lovely woman's tongue 
Shall lisp it tenderly in every clime : 
Yes, woman, with her tender love divine, 
Shall raise an altar in her heart to thee, 
And, a pure priestess, tenderly enshrine 
Thy sacred memory, and ever be 
To thy dear name and fame a faithful devotee. 

CXI. 

What though one ancient crone hath vilely croaked. 
And sought with calumny to blur thy name ? 
Her venomed malice hath been all uncloaked, 
And she is covered o'er with endless shame ; ^ 



night that he did not intend to make any response to Mr. Beecher. He said that if a minister of 
the Gospel was inclined to make a 'holy bully' of himself, and be guilty of so purely beastly a 
speech as Beecher had made in responding to his letter to his client, he [Van Cott] would decline 
to present any rejoinder, for the reason that it is beneath his notice." 

Despatch to the Boston Herald, Chicago, 111., March 7, 1887 : — 
"A highly sensational scene occurred at the regular weekly meeting of the Congregational 
ministers here this morning. Early in the proceedings reference was made to the illness of Henry 
"Ward Beecher. The sentiments of some of the ministers took the shape of resolutions of condo- 
lence, which it was propojed to send to Mrs. Beecher by telegraph One minister stated in 

bold terms that he would not extend sympathy to a man who was charged with immorality, and 
had never cleared himself of the charge. He said he doubted that Mr. Beecher had established his 

innocence of the offence of which he was accused by Theodore Tilton Rev. E. P. Goodwin, 

who opposed the resolutions, refused to make public his reasons Mr. Goodwin said : ' I wish 

the resolutions had never been offered, or that I had not been there ; but once they were proposed, 

and I was present, it was my duly to speak against them If necessary, I will make public at 

a future time all my reasons for opposing the message of condolence, but I can't tell now. I know 
too much, and many facts have come into my family. Mr. Beecher's brother is a member of my 
church.'" 

1 Although Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe is. of course, not to be held strictly 
accountable for the crimes of her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, yet she must 
have suffered deeply from the shame and disgrace which overshadow, and always 



84 THE WANDERER; OR, 

While brighter blazes forth thy wondrous fame, 
And millions of true hearts are bound to thee, 
And chant with love thy thrilling strains, that flame 
With the pure fire of lofty poesy, — 
Strains that raise up the sad and soothe despondency. 

CXII. 

If thou didst err, why who among us all 

Can say we had not erred as much, and more ? 



will overshadow, her own family-name ; and such an avalanche of adulterous 
charges against her own brother must have suggested to her mind the propriety 
of having looked at home before having made her "base and baseless charges" 
(as they have been shown to be) against the name of an illustrious bard who, 
during his lifetime, had never played the hypocrite, at least, or bfcien the subject of 
such foul charges as she unjustly charged him with, even from his bitterest 
enemies. But of her own brother's guilt there can hardly be a shadow of doubt ; 
and I can learn of none who seem to doubt it, outside of his own society and 
personal friends ; and I verily believe that they, even, more than half believe the 
charges against him true. He, a minister of the Gospel, to be charged, by various 
persons of credit and high standing, with adulteries which the most superhuman 
efforts of himself and friends could not disprove. How can the world regard him 
as other than the basest of hypocrites ? When he or his friends, for effect, osten- 
tatiously procured an indictment for libel against one of his accusers, — and yet 
refrained from bringing it to a trial, — that accuser even urged them to bring it to 
trial, and the following request to that effect appeared in the newspapers from his 

pen : — 

124 Montague Street, Brooklyn, July 8, 1875. 

" Sir, — It is now nearly a year since, at the instance of Rev. Heur.v Ward Beecher, I was in- 
dicted for libel in charging him with adultery with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton. During all tliis 
time the prosecution have taken no steps for the trial of the indictment. I am advised that I have 
a right to dem.and a trial, and, accordingly, I hereby notify you that I am ready at any moment to 
meet the charges, and request you to appoint the earliest practicable day for the trial. And since 
it is intimated by the par'isans of the prosecutor that they intend to shield him from the conse- 
quences of the exposure involved in the trial of my charge of adultery by procuring a withdrawal 
or suppression of the indictment, I hereby protest against such an evasion of public justice and 
outrage upon private right. If Rev. Henry Ward Beecher be innocent of the charge I have pub- 
lished against him, I ought to be punished for my offence. On the other hand, if I have not 
accused him falsely, I am guilty of no offence, society and the law owe me an acquittal and vin- 
dication from the indictment preferred against me. 

(Signed) "Very respectfully, etc., 

"FRANCIS D. MOULTON. 
" To the District Attorney of King's County." 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 85 

For from thy earliest j^outh did Pleasure call, 
And spread before thine eyes her tempting store ! 
Ay, from her charmed cup, all running o'er 
With youthful pleasures, she did bid thee drink ; 
And of the poison thou didst taste before 
Thine ardent soul had wisely learned to think ; 
But those who blame thee most beneath her charms 
would sink. 

CXIII. 

And Disap]oointment early came to thee, 
And plunged her barbed arrows in thy heart; 
And bade thee sigh for what could never be, 
And writhe beneath love's never-healing smart : 
Ah, who from Beauty's side can liglitl}^ part, 
And check the rising flood within the eye ? 
Unbidden tears from the sad soul will start, 
And aching breast will heave with stifled sigh : 
Alas, for Beauty's frown how many brave hearts die ! 

CXIV. 

Thy lofty soul, o'er-sensitive to scorn, 
Was pierced and pained by the world's idle jeers : 
And men demanded of thy youth's wild morn 
The wisdom staid that comes with riper years : 
Thy harp's sweet strains they greeted with low sneers, 
And sought to clip thy wings ere thou couldst soar ; 
But thou didst teach them they were not thy peers ! 
Then openly they shunned to meet thee more, 
But covertly on thee their calumnies did pour. 



86 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

CXV. 

But when at length thy fingers swept the lyre, 
Waking wild strains ne'er heard on earth before, — 
Wild strains that glowed with pure poetic fire. 
Flowing in floods from out thy soul's rich store, — 
Ah, then, for envy they could hear no more. 
But sought to pierce thee with their shafts of hate ! 
They could not bear to see thee nobly soar. 
But strove to curb thee to their low estate : 
And, careless, thou didst stoop to meet thine own sad 
fate. 

CXVI. 

Thou shouldst have earlier learned to shun mankind; 
Thy soul was all unfitted for life's maze ; 
Thou shouldst have sooner shut them from thy mind, 
Not bared thy artless soul before their gaze. 
It cost thee dear to learn their wily ways. 
And deeply thy sad heart was taught to bleed: 
The lesson saddened all thy after-days 
And maddened thee to oft-regretted deed, — 
And bade thy gloomy mind on sad reflection feed. 

CXVII. 

Woe to the heart that Music's voice doth melt ! 
Deep are the pangs that mournful heart must feel: 
The soul that hath the Muse's influence felt 
Must feel, at times, that reason's self doth reel! 
Against the Muse's transports who can steel 
The exalted mind, or calm the heaving breast ? 
Her mystic transports fire the soul with zeal 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 87 

That bears it on, and bars it from all rest, 
Driving through Hadean shades or regions of the blest. 

CXVIII. 

Woe to the soul touched by that mystic power! 
Eeason must struggle oft to hold her SAvay : 
That gift divine may prove a fatal dower; 
And reason's light may sink in glimmering ray: 
The Muse's votary must often pray 
For strength divine to guide his soul aright; 
For dark and devious must be the way. 
Inscrutable as are the paths of Night, 
Through regions of black shade and realms of dazzling; 
light. 

CXIX. 

The Muse's mystic power was laid on thee ; 
From earliest youth thy spirit felt the spell ; 
That deep mysterious charm no eye can see. 
That wondrous witchery no tongue can tell : 
But oh ! her votaries know that charm full well, 
That bids the pulses throb, the eye to weep ; 
The aching breast with stifled sigh must swell, 
The roused-up soul can neither rest nor sleep, 
And the sad spirit must her lengthened vigils keep. 

cxx. 

Thus was thy soul baptized with sacred Are, — 
Touched by divine afflatus of the gods ! ^ 



1 Hiuic ego non diligam? uoii admirer? non omni ratione defeiidendum putem?' 
Atqui sic a summis honiinibus eriiditissimisque accepimus, ceterarum rerum studia 
et doctrina, et praeceptis, et arte constare ; poetam natura.ipsa valere. et mentis. 
Tiribus excitari, et quasi divino quodam spiritu inflari. — Ciceko. 



88 THE WANDERER; OR, 

To lofty thoughts she coukl not but aspire ! 
Unlitted to commune with earthly clods, — 
The common herd : with them thou wast at odds, 
And shouldst have shunned them as the child shuns 

lire : 
To thee they were but as the very sods 
Beneath thy feet ! thy mind was vastly higher, 
And soared in realms of thought where theirs would 

droop and tire. 

CXXI. 

Ah, well I know them, — vultures of mankind 
Who feed and fatten on their human prey ! 
Their very contact sullies lofty mind, — 
And would debase it to their common clay: 
For those whom Nature placed above them they 
Are dire contagion and a source of ill ! 
But ' cats will mew and dogs Avill have their day ' : ^ 
So of their filthy food they feed their fill: 
But lofty mind, despite them, holds her empire stilL 

CXXII. 

A child of song, a soul baptized in woe 
And nurtured in afiliction, 't was thy fate 
From earliest youth their stings to undergo, 
And be a prey to their low spite and hate; 
O, goaded by them till, all-desolate. 



1 Let Hercules himself do what he may, 
The cat will mew, the dog will have his day. 

Hamlet, Act. V., Scene 1. 



LIFE'S PILGBIMAGE. 89 

Thy bleeding soul looked on the world with scorn, 
Deeming thyself the sport of adverse fate, 
Cursing the day that ever thou wast born, 
No wonder thou didst sink beneath life's blighting 
storm ! 

CXXIIL 

Thou hadst slight sympathy with common men, 
And shouldst have earlier learned to shun mankind ; 
Their aims of life are grovelling ; and then 
They cannot reach the realms of lofty mind; 
In low ambitions they their pleasures find: 
Companionshi}) with them was not for thee ! 
To the bright charms of genius they are blind; 
For Nature but intended them to be 
The worthless weeds and scum on life's unwholesome sea. 

CXXIV. 

There is a cold and clankless chain whose links 
With more than old Promethean tortures bind ! 
Into the very soul its iron sinks, 
To chill and chain the spirit of the mind ! 
Around the panting soul its meshes wind 
The tortures which its viewless strain can bring; 
And when, too late, the Avaking soul doth lind 
Herself all powerless off those bonds to fling. 
She droops and pines away, like eagle with clipped wing. 

cxxv. 

'T is a sad story ! but, alas ! too true : 

The yearning soul must seek and seek in vain 



90 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Its other self ! And oh ! how very few, 

"Made one" by churchman's bonds, who rest not 

twain ! 
Love, blindly seeking, ever hopes to gain 
That which may satisfy the thirsting soul! 
And only when too late we wake to pain, 
Struggling with woes we cannot all control. 
We learn dark Fate decrees we miss the wished-for goal. 

CXXVI. 

But thousands wear the chain they cannot break, 
And hide its deathless torture from all eyes ! 
Suffer in anguish for appearance' sake. 
And, through unconquered pride, their woes disguise I 
Grief is the sad instructor of the wise ; 
But bitter is the lesson she doth teach ! 
And lofty souls, alone, her lessons prize ; 
The common herd are sunk below her reach ; 
They war and grovel on, each freely hating each. 

cxxvn. 

And thou didst seek that clankless chain to wear, — 
Unwary of thy fate, — one moment blind ! ^ 
Thy heaven-born soul was bound by earthly snare, 
And human wiles entrapped thy lofty mind : 



Ktti (ce TO |3ouAot|W.Tjv, Kai Kev ttoAu KepSiou riev, 
T) oiiTui Auj^rji' t' e/uevai Koi vnoipiov dWiov. 

'lAtaSos, y'. 



LIFE'S PILGBIMAGE. 91 

But quickly tliy awakened soul did find 
Her pinions pained by Hymen's galling halter ; 
And, frenzied, she did struggle to unwind 
The uncongenial bonds : ay ! at the altar, 
With horror most prophetic, did thy dark soul falter.^ 

CXXVIII. 

Thou shouldst have known thy soul could never wear 
The chains invented for poor common clay: 
Formed of a nobler essence, free as air 
Her realm must be in which to soar aAvay : 
With uncongenial mate she could not stay, 
And writhe beneath the tortures of the mind; 
Like patient drudge drag through each weary day, — 
To lowly flight her soaring pinions bind, — 
And meet companionship with vapid mortal find. 

CXXIX. 

Thou shouldst have wisely barred the world away. 
And worshipped only at fair Nature's shrine : 



1 " I saw him stand 
Before the altar with a gentle bride ; 
Her face was fair, but was not that which made 
The starlight of his boyhood ; — as he stood 
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came 
The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock 
That in the antique oratory shook 
His bosom in its solitude ; and then — 
As in that hour — a moment o'er his face 
The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
Was traced, — and then it faded as it came, 
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke 
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words 

Bykox, Tf)e Dream. 



92 THE WANDERER; OR, 

Thou wast not formed to herd with common clay; 

Thy soul was of an essence more divine : 

Some loftier mind, in sympathy with thine, 

Thou shouldst have chosen for congenial mate: 

Then, monarch of thy mental realms sublime, 

Thy earthly life had been less desolate; 

Thou couldst have smiled, unharmed, at the world's idle 

hate. 

cxxx. 

0, fare thee well ! illustrious bard, farewell ! 
The eye grows dim while gazing on thy urn: 
The aching breast with stifled sigh doth swell; 
Keluctant from thy shrine the footsteps turn ! 
The pilgrim's heart for thee will fondly yearn. 
And turn once more to read thy lettered name ; 
The moistened cheek with fiery scorn will burn. 
For those who basely seek to blur thy fame : 
0, let their names go down in infamy and sliame ! 

CXXXI. 

And that unwholesome Harpy of the West, 
Who turned her loathsome talons upon thee, 
May dire remorse yet wring her withered breast, 
That felt nor ruth nor truth nor charity ! 
0, let her feel her darkened name must be 
A byword and a blot, in future years ! 
Till her unwholesome tales of obloquy 
From her dim eyes shall draw remorseful tears ; 
And self-contempt shall load her ruthless soul with 
fears. 



LIFE'S PILGBIMAGE. 93 

CXXXII. 

It were a boon to her if she could die ! 
But let her live, to wallow in her shame, — 
She who could seek with many a specious lie 
To soil a mighty Bard's illustrious name : 
Like slimy serpent, she did vilely aim 
To strike, with venomed fangs, a deadly blow ! 
And did she vainly hope to share his fame, — 
Her name with his on history's page to show, — 
Was it for this her fangs with venom did o'erflow ? 

CXXXIII. 

0, if I k7iew that she did aim at this, — 
My tongue should blast her with the curse of Cain ! 
When the old serpent first began to hiss, 
There came a boding sense of ill and pain : 
But who, alas ! could deem that she would aim 
To void her venom on so fair a tree ? 
But let her live ! in infamy and shame, 
A noteless stain, knowing herself to be 
The parasite of fame, and curse of minstrelsie ! 

CXXXIV. 

Lo, gods and Fate avenge a dead man's wrong! 
Her line is marked as with the curse of Cain : 
It needs nor searching eye nor vision strong 
To see the smutch of deep adulterous stain 
That rests upon her race : ^ and if the pain 



1 After suffering the stings of conscience and remorse for something like foiu- 
mortal years, it seems that Mrs. Tilton conld endure to live a lie no longer, and is 
said to have finally decided to make a clean breast of it in the following '-last 



94 THE WAXDERER; OR, 

It brings is a chastisement hard to bear. 
E'en while her faded brow is hot with shame, 
Let Justice take the cup she did prepare 
For lips long dumb and cold, and bid her drink her 
share I 

•confession," which startled the world by its appearance in the newspapers in April, 
1878. I quote it verbatim, as follows : — 

" Me. Tea B. Wheelee : J/i/ dear Sir. — A few weeks since, after long months of mental 
anguish, I told, as you know, a few friends whom I had bitterly deceived, that the charges of my 
husband of adultery between myself and the Rev. H. W. Beecher were true, and that the lie I had 
lived so well the last four years had become intolerable to me. That statement I now solemnly 
reaffirm, and leave the truth with God, to whom I also commit myself, my children, and all who 
must suffer. I know full well the explanations that will be sought by many for this acknowl- 
«d£ment, — a desire to return to my husband, insanity, malice. — everything save the true and 
■only one, —my quickened conscience and the sense of what is due to the cause of truth and 
justice. During all the complications of these years you have been my confidential friend, and. 
therefore, I address this letter to you, authorizing and requesting you to secure its publication. 

(Signed) " ELIZABETH E- TH^TON. 
" Beookltx, April 13, 1878." 

There spoke the truly repentant woman ! How much more to be honored and 
pitied than her hypocritical seducer. The following are a few of the comments of 
the press as extracted from the journals of the day. The Times (S. Y.) said : — 

"It has always believed in the guilt of Mr. Beecher on other grounds than the confession 

As for Mr. Beecher, he remains the impure and perjured man which any rational construction of 
his own letters proved him to be. That fact deprives Mr. Beecher's rejoinder to Mrs. Tilton's 
latest confession of any title of consideration. It lends, however, to every fresh protest of his 
a2-ainst the justice of retribution which he has earned, the terrible emphasis of persistent hypoc- 
risy and falsehood Mrs. Tilton's latest confession will probably not abate one jot of the 

attachment with which Mr. Beecher's friends have cluug to him. and their faith in his inn<x:ence 
is likely to stand a much ruder test than this. But it can hardly fail to deepen the indignation 
with which those convinced of Mr. Beecher's guilt regard the spectacle of the gospel of truth and 
purity being expounded by one who has so flagrantly defied its precepts." 

The following is copied from the (X. Y.) Sun: — 

'• The confession of Elizabeth R. Tilton of her guilt with Henry Ward Beecher fully justifies 
the wisdom of Mr. Beecher's counsel in the scandal trial in taking care not to allow Sirs. Tilton 
to testify in court. At the time there is no doubt she would have commenced her evidence by 
denying the whole story of guilt, but she must have broken down in the cross-examination, and 
confessed the truth before she got through. The statement she now makes is undoubtedly true. 
It agrees with all the evidence in the case, and furnishes the only satisfactory explanation of the 
■otherwise marvellous and mysterious expressions of Mr. Beecher's letters. As a matter of positive 
testimony its value is of course diminished by the fact that Mrs. Tilton has before contradicted 
herself respecting this subject, but no intelligent person can examine the whole case without 
•coming to the conclusion that the facts are so. Henry Ward Beecher is an adulterer, perjurer, and 
fraud, and his great genius and his Christian pretences only make his sin more horrible and 
revolting." 

Plenty of other extracts from newspapers of the time, from all over the country, 
might be given ; but— sa^is est superque. 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 95 

cxxxv. 

0, let us weep no more tliat thou art dead, 
And far beyond the reach of human woe I 
The carrion-kites that screamed around th}' liead 
Can torture thee no more ! they may not go 
To thy bright realms, but to the shades beloAv : 
So perish all to whom such breasts belong 
As cannot feel for others ; cannot glow 
In sympathy with thy immortal song, 
Or warm beneath the zeal that bears the bard along. 

CXXXVI. 

Thou wast a child of Xature : freely she 
Bestowed her charms upon thee, and did bless 
Thy soul with richest gifts ; and 't Avas for thee 
To gaze upon her naked loveliness, 
Actason-like,^ and yet not love her less : 
And thou didst wanton with her naked charms. — 
Those charms it cloys the soul not to possess. — 
And lovingly she took thee to her arms 
And shielded thy rapt soul from superhuman harms. 

cxxx\^I. 

She could not shield thee from life's sore distress 
Or man's fell hate : they broke each tie that binds. 



1 Actaeon, a famous Iniiitsman, was the son of Aristae us by Autonoe, the daughter 
of the Cadmus who was said to have introduced the use of letters into Greece. 
Cadmus was supposed to have brouglit the alphabet from Phoenicia to Greece 
aboixt 1-493 years B. C. His grandson, Actfeon, gazed upon the naked charms of 
Diana and her attendants while they were liathing near Gargajihia ; and to punish 
him for such a naughty act, he was changed into a stag, aiul devoured by his own 



96 THE WANDERER; OR, 

And left thee on the earth companionless, 
Till thou didst mate with mountains and with winds^ 
And sported with the lightning's flash, which blinds 
All lesser mortals ; but thy spirit proud 
Was wrapt as in a mantle : to men's minds 
Thou wast as dark as the lone thunder-cloud 
That blackens all the sky and wraps it in a shroud. 

CXXXVIII. 

And in thy desolation thou didst flee, 

A Aveary pilgrim, in far climes to roam; 

Winding thy way across the trackless sea, 

To die afar from thine own native home : 

There thou didst yield thy life without a groan, 

Far, far from all that once to thee was dear, 

Where strangers in strange tongue for thee made 

moan ; 
And foreign hands did deck thy mournful bier, 
And mourners in strange garb for thee poured many a 

tear. 

CXXXIX. 

Thy latest sigh was breathed in that fair land 

Where high Olympus towers to meet the skies ; 

Thy dying couch was smoothed by Grecian hand. 

And Hellas' warriors closed thy dying eyes : 

Then through the vales of Greece there did arise 

A wail of woe that loaded all the air ; 

And naught was heard save grievous groans and sighs; 




BYKON AT 36. See stanza cxxxvin, page 96. 



LIFE'S PILGEIMAGE. 97 

And Grecian maidens tore their flowing hair 
And beat their white and swelling bosoms in despair.^ 

CXL. 

Sad Xature in wild agony did mourn, 
Bidding the Genius of old Greece awake ! 
Back on the wings of lightning was he borne ; 
From thrall of ages quickly did he break; 
And cloud-compelling Jove once more did take 



1 The manner of mourning for the dead varies much in different countries. 
Every nation has some conventional form of expressing sorrow for tlie departed. 
The Greeks, like the ancient Hebrews, threw dust and ashes on their heads, and 
often tore their hair and clothing. Sometimes they even lacerated their persons 
or faces, and often uttered the exclamation e, e, e. The classical reader will 
readily recall the mourning of ^Eneas and his companions for Polydorus, and the 
description of the lamentations of the women with their hair unbound and 

flowing : — 

Et circiira Iliades crinem de more sohitaB : 
Inferimus tepido spumantia cymbia lacte. 
Sanguinis et sacri pateras : animamque sepulchre 
Condimus, et magna supremiim voce ciemus. 

^Eneis, Lib. ill. 

The sudden and unexpected death of Lord Byron wa3 the cause of deep and 
general sorrow among all classes in Greece ; both men and women were deeply 
affected by the sad event. As soon as it was known that he was dangerously sick, 
the people of both sexes gathered around his residence and eagerly asked of any 
who were seen to come out, " How is his lordship now? " 

Lake, in his 'Life of Lord Byron,' says : "It would be vain to attempt a de- 
scription of the universal sorrow that ensued at Missolonghi. Not only Mavro- 
cordato and his immediate circle, but the whole city and all its inhabitants, were, 
as it seemed, stunned by this blow ; it had been so sudden, so unexpected. His 
illness, indeed, had been known, and for the last three days none of his friends 
could walk in the streets, without anxious inquiries from every one, of ' How is 
my Lord?' On the day of this melancholy event, Prince ]Mavrocordato issued a 
proclamation expressive of the deep and unfeigned grief felt by all classes, and 
ordering esvery public demonstration of respect and sorrow to be paid to the 

memory of the illustrious deceased The deep-felt, unaffected grief ; the 

fond recollections ; the disappointed hopes ; the anxieties and sad presentiments 
which might be read on every countenance. — all contributed to form a scene more 
moving, more truly affecting, than perhaps was ever before witnessed roimd the 
grave of a great man." 



98 THE WANDERER; OR, 

His fiery shafts and mighty shiekl ; and, lo ! 
Lofty Olympus to his base did quake, 
And forked lightnings round his brow did glow : 
And then he donned his cloudy mantle of black woe. 

CXLI. 

In solemn march, like mourners, overhead. 
Swept on each dark and hooded thunder-cloud; 
And many a big round tear for thee they shed, 
And wrapped all nature in a woeful shroud : 
AVhile with their solemn voices, deep and loud, 
The very elements for thee made moan. 
The spirits of the air in grief were bowed, 
And wailed their sorrows in sad undertone; 
And high Olymj^us echoed long with cloudy groan. 

CXLII. 

Weep, weep anew, ye Grecian vales, oh weep ! 
Your well-loved bard can sing of you no more : 
In his own clime forever must he sleep. 
Afar from you, on stern Britannia's shore ! 
There, requiemed by the wild Atlantic's roar, 
To rest forever free from earthly pain : 
While the deep wrongs which he so calmly bore, 
Eecoiling on the inventors, shall remain 
To blur their proud escutcheons with eternal stain ! 

CXLIII. 

Most musical of valleys, weep anew ! 

Hellas ! let thy vales and mountains weep ! 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 99 

I know not if the legend may be true, — 
But poets feign, that all thy mountains steep 
Echoed sad moans, and all thy rivers deep 
Eose bank-high in their sorrow,^ when thy son, 
Thy 'ancient lyrist, sank in death's cold sleep : 
His sweet lyre broken, and his wild song done : 
His most melodious course, through envious poison,'^ run. 

CXLIV. 

If for your ancient bards ye thus could weep, 
woods and fountains of this classic land ! 
'Twas meet that in the latter years might sweep 
The sound of mourning through your wild groves, — 

and, 
Your fabled dryads, Nature's virgin band, 
Pour their hot tears beneath each classic tree : 
For never did a sweeter lyrist's hand 
Sweep the wild chords, and wake such melodic 
As he hath often poured, Greece, in praise of thee! 

CXLY. 

0, would that I might win to tliat dark realm 
Where the departed dwell, — those regions dim, 



1 The river Meles, upon whose banks some of the ancients believed Homer to 
have been born, was fabled, in song, to have overflowed its banks and rolled its 
sorrows to the sea for the poefs death. 

2 Bion, a Greek poet who flourished about 300 years B. C, is said to have died 
by poison. His poems are written with pui'ity. elegance, and simplicity, and 
abound with correct images of nature. His friend and disciple, ^loschus, com- 
posed an elegiac poem upon his death, in which he personified the different objects 
in nature, and made them mourn his master's death in strains of great sweetness 
and pathos. 



100 THE }VANI)EEER ; OR, 

Whose contemplation doth the mind o'erwhelm ! 
And, wandering there, perchance might meet with him, 
And learn the power of song: so I might win 
The Dark King of those realms to set him free, — 
And win him back to our sad world of sin; 
As Orpheus won back his Eurydice : 
But this, this, alas ! sad Hellas, cannot be. 

CXLVI. 

Ah, when he died, all nature seemed to mourn ! 
And through thy vales, Hellas, did arise 
The A^oice of sorrow, on the sad winds borne ! 
And all the hooded clouds and darkened skies 
Poured their sad tears to earth, like human eyes : 
Lorn nightingales, his sisters, could but pine ; 
And all the sobbing winds breathed heavy sighs 
For him who "sigh'd o'er Delphi's ruined shrine," — 
The Bard whose "shell mote not awake the weary 
Nine." 1 

CXLVII. 

Then from his sacred grove Parnassus '^ sent 
Wild strains of melancholy music ; and, 



1 "Yet there I've Wcandered by thy vaunted rill; 
Yes ! sighed o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine, 
Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still : 
Nor mote my shell awake the tcearij Nine, 

To grace so plain a tale — this lowly lay of mine." 

Byrox. 

2 Mount Parnassus, in Phocis, is one of the highest in Europe, and was anciently 
called Larnassos, from kdpva^, the name of Deucalion's boat which was carried 
there by the universal deluge. From Parnassus, the son of Xeptime, it received 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 101 

Through dark-leaved branches, o'er Castalia ^ bent, 
The low sad winds went sobbing, — like a band 
Of airy mourners : while an unseen hand 
Swept a sweet lyre invisible ; and steam 
Kose from the troubled fountain; and the sand 
Stirred visibly beneath the sacred stream ; 
And a strange pageantry uprose, as in a dream. 

CXLVIII. 

Then sacred Delphi trembled as of old; 
His spirit groaned deep in his caverned bed; 
The mystic vapor from his cave was rolled; 
The sacred spell o'er all around was spread : 
Apollo mourned his sweetest lyrist, dead ! 
And moaned his sorrows to the Sacred Xine ! 
Once more to earth those goddesses soon sped; 
Again they sighed o'er Delphi's ruined shrine ! 
Then bore that wondrous soul ^ to heaven, with love 
divine. 



the name of Parnassus. It was sacred to Apollo and the Muses. Upon this 
mountain the city of Delphi was situated, in a valley upon its southwest side. 
Delphi was celebrated for its temple of Apollo and its famous oracle. The oracles 
were delivered in verse by a priestess called Pythia. She was the priestess of 
Apollo, and was supposed to be inspired by the sulphurous vapors that issued from 
a subterraneous cavern beneath the temple, over which she sat, upon a tripod. At 
this divine insjnration her eyes sparkled, her hair stood on end, and a shivering 
convulsed her whole person ; and in this state she uttered the oracles, with loud 
voice and frenzied raving-s. 

1 Castalia. a fountain of Parnassus, was sacred to the ]\[uses. Its waters had the 
power of inspiring those who drank them with the true fire of poetry. The 
Pythian priestess was accustomed to wash her body, and especially her hair, in 
the waters of Castalia before she placed herself upon her tripod to pronounce the 
mystical messages of Apollo's sacred oracle to mankind. 

- " That wondrous soul" : the soul of Byron. 



102 THE WANDERER; OR, 

CXLIX. 

Lo, at his advent there was joy in heaven ! 
The bright abodes where the immortal dwell 
Were thrilled with a new pleasure ! ay, and even 
The noblest of that band, who loved him well, — 
He of the sightless orbs,^ and, sooth to tell, 
The mightiest of the inheritors of fame, — 
He rose and bowed ! and from his grave lips fell 
The tones of welcome ; and he spake that name 
"Which thrilled the assembled Bards, like an electric 
flame. 

CL. 

Then from their shining thrones they quickly rose, — 
Eose in effulgent immortality ; 
Around "The Pilgrim"' did the noblest close; 
Others, from distance, timidly drew nigh : 
The INIantuan Bard- conducted liini where, high, 
A shining throne stood all-unoccupied : 
And one with mournful face and heavy sigh,-^ 
Tuned a sweet lyre and placed it bv liis side : 
"Eeign ever with the noblest of our band!" they cried. 

CLI. 

0, what avails that breaking hearts now bleed ? 
And what avails that burning tears are shed? 
They cannot now undo each ruthless deed. 



1 Homer, who is said to have been blind, and who may well be styled the 
greatest of all bards. 

- Viriiil ; born near Mantua. 

3 Dante ; whose comitenance is said to have been " always sad and thoughtful." 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 103 

They cannot now awake the sleeping dead! 
The soul they could and should have soothed is fled : 
Now those who feel his loss are doomed to mourUj 
And bow in sorrow round his lowly bed, 
And curse the hands that ruthlessly have torn 
The flowers which to his bier dear loving liands have 
borne. 

CLII. 

I gaze with awe ujjon thy honored tomb, 

Bard of undying fame, whose soul was Are, — 

Poetic fire deep-tinged with lurid gloom, 

For with thy heart-strings thou didst string thy 

lyre, — 
Of thy wild strains my soul shall never tire ! 
And human woes are better borne for thee : 
The struggling soul, by thee taught to aspire, 
Will scorn to sink beneath dark destiny ; 
But, cheered by thy wild strains, will struggle manfully. 

CLIII. 

Angel or demon, — whatsoe'er thou wast. — 
I e'er shall love thy lofty strain right well I 
A soul from realms above, or spirit lost, 
Let him whose soul can fathom thine now tell : 
If from the realms of Heaven or shades of Hell 
I care not ! and it boots not now to know : 
Thy earthly mission thou didst fill so well 
That to earth's meaner mortals thou didst show 
A mighty spirit's course, lighted by genius' glow! 



104 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

CLIV. 

Ay, boldly didst thou scale Parnassus' heights, 
While weaker bards toiled struggling far below : 
But thy rapt soul with most majestic flights 
Soared where Apollo's lightnings fiercely glow ! 
To bardlings of the earth thy song did show 
A lofty flight from which their souls did shrink : 
From the Pierian fount, whose currents flow 
To nourish daring souls, thine own did drink 
Intoxicating draughts, while they shrank from the brink. 

CLV. 

Thy realm was in the region of black night, — 
Like eagle lone on thunder-riven rock ! 
And there, enthroned in majestic height, 
Thou couldst look doAvn in scorn upon the shock 
And strife of mortals far beneath -, and mock 
Their weak attempts to reach thy high domain: 
Mysterious spirit ! who hath dared to knock 
At the dread portals Avhich none else could gain, — 
wondrous Bard! the world still loves thy weird, wild 
strain ! 

CLVI. 

Thy course was like a mighty meteor's flight, 
By unknown forces hurled athwart the sky ! 
Bursting in glory on the astonished sight, — 
Perplexing in its course the dazzled eye : 
To fathom thy dark mind, in vain did try 
The wits and wondrous sages of thy day : 



LIFE'S PILGRIMAGE. 105 

Consumed with envy that thou soarclst so high, 
And baffled in the attempt thy soul to weigh, 
They sought with vemoned shafts thy wondrous course 
to stay. 

CLYII. 

Cursed be the ruthless hands that rudely tear 
The Poet's chaplet from his burning brow ! 
The brainless fools who will not let him wear 
His soothing anadem : they know not how 
'T was woven in deep sorrow ; and that, now 
Its amaranthine flowers strew the wind, 
Long must his bleeding soul in anguish bow, 
And seek in vain each fragrant leaf to find. — • 
And the torn petals all, with tenderness rebind. , 

CLVIII. 

God ! '' man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn," and clothes the 

earth 
In woeful sorrow ; making life's brief span 
A weary burden, and our hour of birth 
A dire misfortune ; quenching healthful mirth. 
Designed by loving Nature as our lot, 
Until we loathe our kind. — and in the dearth 
Of fellow-feeling, hesitating not 
To curse the race, which we would from the fair earth 

blot. 

CLIX. 

Among them, but not with them, I have walked; 
Breathing an air untainted by their breath : 



106 THE WANDERER ; OR, 

And with the souls of sages I have talked, — 
Sages of old-time, long since gone to death : 
Thus, though among them, I breathed not the breath 
Of degradation which the rabble drew ; 
But conning o'er the thoughts of life and death, 
I felt a joy their low-born souls ne'er knew, 
While ever from my mind I shut their hated view. 

CLX. 

Wrapt in the mantle of sublime st thought, 
I walked the earth among them, but apart ! 
And at the price of loneliness I bought 
The treasure that was dearest to my heart, — 
The power to stand above them ! for a smart 
Unbearable would pierce me at their touch ; 
And from their contact I did rudely start 
(And, hating me, they might perceive as much) 
As if a viper stung me, for I felt it such. 

CLXI. 

What though I thus should walk the earth alone, 
Shut from the sympathies of human kind ? 
I bear my sorrows and I make no moan. — 
And break no hearts that other ties should bind! 
And if my lonely soul, at times, may find 
A desolation which doth force a sigh. 
It shall not make me seek again my kind, — ■ 
Or look upon them with a loving eye : 
The lordly eagle dwells alone, and so will I- 



LIFES PILGRIMAGE. 107 

CLXII. 

Behold one fytte of life's sad pilgrimage! 
" More than enough ! " some carper may exclaim : 
But he who hath in sorrow penned each page, 
Will little heed if critics praise or blame : 
What though the idle brood, in rage, complain 
And launch their venomed malice on the wind? 
A few short years, and all will be the same ! 
Posterity Avill judge with fairer mind ; 
And what is good and true a recompense will find, 

CLXIII. 

But ye who would some further tidings learn 
Of the lone Wanderer, — on a far-off shore, — 
If for him one sad heart doth fondly yearn. 
To that one heart he fain would whisper more ; 
Whatever Fate, for him, may have in store, — 
Some future strain shall waft it to the ear ! 
And howsoe'er mad critics may deplore. 
Some loving eye for him may shed a tear. 
Or fair hand twine one wreath for his untimely bier. 










THE RUINS OF KENILWORTH CASTLE. See Appendix, paafe 109. 






HISTORICAL APPENDIX. 



KENILV^rORTH CASTLE. 
{Referred to on page 26.) 

TO those who have visited the ruins of Kenilworth, and read 
Scott's thrilling story of the same name, no word of explanation 
is necessary , but to the many who have not yet enjoyed those exqui- 
site pleasures, a word of historical explanation may not be amiss. The 
ruins of Kenilworth Castle are situated in the town of Kenilworth, 
county of Warwickshire, England, at about a hundred miles north- 
west from London. They are among the oldest and most extensive 
of the time-worn relics of the feudal ages. They date back with cer- 
tainty to the times of Henry I., son of William the Conqueror, and 
perhaps much earlier. Henry I. granted the manor to his chamber- 
lain, Geoffroi de Clinton, one of those Normans who settled in England 
after the Conquest. After the last of the De Clintons the castle was 
again vested in the crown, as it was many times afterwards in the 
ages that followed; and for many years Kenilworth was a post of 
the first importance, and fills a prominent place in history. Often 
vested in the crown, it was likewise often possessed by some of the 
greatest of England's nobles, such as the De Montforts, the Boling- 
brokes, and the renowned John of Gaunt, — "time-honored Lancas- 
ter," — who had here his favorite residence. Henry VIII. bestowed 
much cost in repairing and enlarging the castle. And -Queen Eliza- 
beth bestowed the castle and manor upon Robert Dudley (son of the 
Duke of Northumberland), whom she created Earl of Leicester, and 
whom, it has been said, she would willingly have married. In July, 
1575, took place the " virgin queen's " celebrated visit to her beloved 
Leicester in his castle of Kenilworth, when and where were held those 
world-renowned fetes and tournaments of which Scott has given us 

109 



110 HIS TORICAL APPENDIX. 

such an enchanting description. And, indeed, to tlie pilgrim and poet 
the ruins of Kenilworth, grand and beautiful in decay, owe their chief 
charms to the spells of enchantment and potent attraction that have 
been thrown around them by the pen of the Scottish novelist; and 
a thousand pleasant but saddening memories will rise up in the 
pilgrim's mind while wandering among these stately and extensive 
ruins, and his heart will often throb with sorrow and sympathy for 
the woes and unrequited love of poor Amy Kobsart. Although 
Kenilworth is now in ruins, yet it is grand and noble even in decay, 
and stands to-day, and long will stand, a proud witness of the pride 
and splendor of the feudal ages. Occupying acres of ground, it is 
composed of almost innumerable lofty towers and long lines of con- 
necting buildings, extending around and nearly inclosing an extensive 
court, or tilt-yard, with vast piles of lofty buildings projecting at 
irregular intervals of its circuit; for almost every one of its noble 
possessors made, in turn, some extensive alterations or additions. 
The Earl of Leicester alone is said to have expended in his time about 
sixty thousand pounds of English money in additions and repairs, — 
a sum equal in value to more than a million of dollars of our present 
money. The great banqueting-hall, adjoining Mervyn's tower, was 
built by John of Gaunt, — a most noble apartment, nearly a hundred 
feet in length, and half as wide, and of great height. Its floor was 
supported on a stone vaulting, resting on parallel rows of massive 
pillars ; and its windows were of great height, filled with tracery, and 
transomed, with the spaces between them panelled ; while they, and 
the fireplaces on each side, were richly ornamented. It also contained 
two grand oriel windows, — one looking east into the great court, and 
one looking west into the chase. But Kenilworth has now lain for 
ages dismantled and in ruins, and reft of all its ancient glory ; but 
in its day it was a princely abode. Aside from its banqueting-halls 
and state apartments, it contained rooms for more than a hundred 
beds, to accommodate its princely possessors and their retinues. 
Kenilworth's final ruin was completed during the civil wars that fol- 
lowed the overthrow of Charles I. ; and, from being a stately and 
princely palace, it became a vast and dismantled ruin, now all over- 



HIS TORICA L A PPEXLIX. Ill 

grown with aged ivy-branches, which seek to shield its crumbling 
walls and towers from the beating storms and moaning winds which 
batter and wear its decaying battlements, and moan through its 
deserted and ruined halls. After the restoration, the ruined castle 
and lands of Kenilworth were granted to a son of Chancellor Hyde ; 
and, by the marriage of one of his female descendants, they passed 
to Thomas Yilliers, Baron Hyde, afterwards created Earl of Claren- 
don, whose descendants are the present possessors. A few years ago 
large portions of the ruin showed signs of falling, and Earl Clarendon 
caused them to be strengthened, and partially restored the great hall, 
and repaired some of the external walls, as well as some parts called 
Leicester's buildings. In so doing, the workmen discovered under- 
ground apartments, cells, and passages which had lain concealed and 
unknown for ages. And thus to-day stands ruined Kenilworth, — 
grand and stately, even in decay, with some of its slowly crumbling 
towers still rising to a height of more than seventy feet, to attest the 
grandeur and importance of princely Kenilworth in those far-off days 
when poor Amy Robsart, whose glowing beauty would well have 
graced its princely halls, was wiping her tear-stained eyes, a close 
prisoner, beneath one of these lofty towers whose mistress it was her 
right to be ; while Leicester, who should have protected her in that 
right, was basely paying court to royalty in the person of his sovereign 
queen. 

"And o'ood Queen Bess was lodged within these towers, 
"Where now the iv^*' trails, and ruin darkly lowers." 

Although Sir Walter Scott, in his grand romance of " Kenilworth," 
has represented some of the most deeply interesting scenes in that 
touching story as passing in Kenilworth Castle, yet the entire tragedy 
of the murder of the Countess of Leicester took place at Cumnor Hall, 
near Oxford, many miles distant from Kenilworth Castle. And it was 
the beautiful old ballad of " Cumnor Hall," on the tragic death of the 
Countess of Leicester, by William Julius Mickle, a Scottish poet of 
the eighteenth century, that first suggested to Sir Walter the idea of 
his noble story. The true history of the tragic death of the Countess 
is to be found in Ashmole's " Antiquities of Berkshire " ; and the 
entire tragedy took place in Cumnor Hall. 



112 HISTORICAL APPENDIX. 

Three or four miles from Oxford — the seat of the great English 
university — are the ruins of Godstow Abbey ; but very little is now 
left of Godstow^, and only a few standing walls were to be seen when 
the writer of this took pains to visit the place a few years ago; and 
those sacred remains were then used as a cow-pen : — 

"To what base uses we may return, Horatio !" 

But in the neighborhood of ruined Godstow were the broad lands of 
the ancient manor of Cumnor Hall, once belonging to the monks of 
Abington. At the suppression of the monasteries by Henry YIH. in 
the sixteenth century, the said manor of Cumnor was conveyed to 

one (3wen, the possessor of Godstow at the time ; and, according 

to Ashmole's "Antiquities," there was in the said house of Cunnior 
Hall a chamber called Dudley's chamber, where the Earl of Leicester's 
wife was murdered, of which murder, according to Ashmole, the follow- 
ing is, in part, the true story : — 

"Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly personage, and singularly 
well featured, being a great favorite to Queen Elizabeth, it was thought, and 
commonly reported, that had he been a bachelor or widower the queen would have 
made him her husband ; to this end, to free himself of all obstacles, he commands, 
or perhaps with fair tiattering entreaties desires his wife, the Countess of 
Leicester, to repose herself here at his servant Anthony Forster's house, who 
then lived in the aforesaid manor-house {i. c, in Cumnor Hall), and also prescribed 
to Sir Richard Varney (a prompter to this design), at his coming hither, that he 
should first attempt to poison her, and, if that did not take effect, then by any 
other way whatsoever to dispatch her. 

" This, it seems, was proved by the report of Dr. "Walter Bayly, sometime 
fellow of New College, then living in Oxford, and professor of physic in that 
university, whom, because he would not consent to take away her life by poison, 
the earl endeavored to displace him the court. This man, it seems, reported for 
most certain, that there was a practice in Cumnor among the conspirators to have 
poisoned this poor innocent lady a little before she was killed, which was at- 
tempted after this manner : 

" They, seeing the good lady sad and heavy (as one that well knew by her other 
handling that her death was not far off), began to persuade her that her present 
disease was abundance of melancholy and other humors, etc. , and therefore would 
needs counsel her to take some potion, which she absolutely refusing to do, as 
still suspecting the worst, whereupon they sent a messenger on a day (unawares 
to her) for Dr. Bayly, and entreated him to persuade her to take some little potion 
by his direction, and they would fetch the same at Oxford, meaning to have added 
something of their own for her comfort, as the doctor upon just cause and con- 



HIS TORI CA L A PPENDIX. 113 

sideration did suspect, seeing their great importunity, and the small need the lady- 
had of physic, and therefore he peremptorily denied their request, misdoubting 
(as he afterwards reported), lest, if they had poisoned her under the name of his 
potion, he might have been hanged for a color of their sin ; and the doctor re- 
mained still well assured that this way taking no effect, she would not long escape 
their violence, which afterwards happened thus : 

" For Sir Richard Yarney abovesaid (the chief projector in this design), who, 
by the earl's order, remained that day of her death alone with her, with one man 
only and Forster, who had that day forcibly sent away all her servaxits from her 
to Abington market, about three miles distant from this place. They (I say, 
whether first stifling her, or else strangling her; afterwards flung her down a pair 
of stairs and broke her neck, using much violence upon her ; but, however, though 
it was vulgarly reported that she by chance fell down stairs (but still without 
hurting her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants will tell you there 
that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where she lay. to another where 
the bed's head of the chamber stood close to a privy postern door, where they in 
the night came and stifled her in her bed, bruised her head very much, broke her 
neck, and at length flung her down stairs : thereby believing the world would 
have thought it a mischance, and so have blinded their villany." 

Such (in part) is the true story of the murder of the real Countess 
of Leicester; and Scott, in the preface to his thrilling romance of 
" Kenilworth," tells us that he " borrowed several incidents, as well 
as names, from Ashmole's ' Antiquities ' ; but that his first acquaint- 
ance with the history [of the murder of the Countess of Leicester] was 
through the pleasing medium of verse," alluding, thereby, to the fine 
old ballad of " Cumnor Hall/' by Mickle, which is here cited at length 
for the gratification of those readers who may not chance to be 
familiar with it. Scott said " the first stanza especially had a peculiar 
species of enchantment for his youthful ear," and added, that that 
*' enchantment" had not entirely spent its force in his mature years. 

CUMNOR HALL. 

The dews of Summer night did fall, 

The moon, sweet regent of the sky. 
Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall. 

And many an oak that grew tliereby. 

Now nought was heard beneath the skies. 

The sounds of busy life were still, 
Save an unhappy lady's sighs, 

That issued from that lonely pile. 



114 HIS TORICA L A PPEyDIX. 



"Leicester," she cried, "is this thy love 
Tliat thou so oft has sworn to me, 

To leave me in this lonely grove, 
Immured in shameful privity? 

"No more thou com"st with lover's speed, 

Thy once beloved bride to see ; 
But be she alive, or be she dead, 

I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thee. 

" Not so the usage I received 
When happy in my father's hall ; 

No faithless husband then me grieved. 
No chilling fears did me appall. 

"I rose up with the cheerful morn, 
No lark more blithe, no flower more gay, 

And like the bird that haunts the thorn, 
So merrily sung the livelong day. 

" If that my beauty is but small. 
Among court ladies all despised. 

Why didst thou rend it from that hall, 
AVhere, scornful Earl, it well was prized? 

"And when you first to me made suit, 
How fair I was you oft would say ! 

And proud of conquest, plucked the fruit, 
Then left the blossom to decay. 

" Yes ! now neglected and despised, 
The rose is pale, the lily's dead; 

But he that once their charms so prized, 
Is sure the cause those charms are fled. 

"For know, when sick'ning grief doth prey, 
And tender love 's repaid with scorn, 

The sweetest beauty will decay, — 
What floweret can endure the storm? 

"At court, I'm told, is beauty's throne. 
Where every lady 's passing rare, 

That Eastern flowers, that shame the sun, 
Are not so glowing, not so fair. 



HISTOEICAL APPEXDIX. 115- 



"Theii, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds 
AVhere roses and -where lilies vie, 

To seek a primrose, whose pale shades 
Must sicken when those gauds are by? 

" 'Mong- rural beauties I was one. 
Among the fields wild flowers are fair ; 

Some country swain might me have won, 
And thought my beauty passing rare. 

'•But. Leicester (or I much am wrong), 
Or "t is not beauty lures thy vows ; 

Rather ambition's gilded crown 
Makes thee forget thy humble spouse. 

'•Then, Leicester, why, again I plead 
(The injured surely may repine),— 

AVhy didst thou wed a country maid, 

When some fair princess might be thine? 

" Why didst thou praise my humble charms, 
And, oh ! then leave them to decay? 

Why didst thou win me to thy arms. 
Then leave to mourn the livelong day? 

"The village maidens of the plain 

Salute me lowly as they go ; 
Envious they mark my silken train, 

Nor think a Coimtess can have woe. 

" The simple nymphs ! they little know 
How far more happy 's their estate ; 

To smile for joy — than sigh for woe — 
To be content — than to be great. 

"How far less blest am I than them? 

Daily to pine and waste with care ! 
Like the poor plant, that, from its stem 

Divided, feels the chilling air. 

" Nor, cruel Earl ! can I enjoy 
The humble charms of solitude ; 

Your minions proud my peace destroy, 
By sullen frowns or pratings rude. 



116 HISTORICAL APPENDIX. 



" Last night, as sad I chanced to stray, 

The village death-bell smote my ear ; 
They winked aside, and seemed to say, 

' Countess, prepare, thy end is near ! ' 

"And now, while happy peasants sleep. 

Here I sit lonely and forlorn ; 
No one to soothe me as I weei:). 

Save Philomel on yonder thorn. 

"3Iy spirits flag — my hopes decay — 
Still that dread death-bell smites my ear ; 

And many a boding seems to say. 
'Countess, prepare, thy end is near !'" 

Thus sore and sad that lady grieved, 

In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear ; 
And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved, 

And let fall many a bitter tear. 

And ere the dawn of day appeared, 

In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear ; 
Full many a piercing scream was heard. 

And many a cry of mortal fear. 

The death-bell thrice was heard to ring, 
An aerial voice was heard to call. 

And thrice the raven flapped its wing- 
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.i 

The mastiff howled at village door. 

The oaks were shattered on the green ; 
Woe was the hour! for never more 

That hapless Countess e'er was seen. 

1 In a pathetic ballad entitled ' Colin and Lucy,' by Thomas Tickell, an English 
poet who died when Wm. Julius Mickle was a mere child, occurs this stanza: — 

"Three times all in the dead of night 
A bell was heard to ring, 
And shrieking, at her window thrice 
The raven flapped his wing." 

From this stanza, by Tickell, Mickle, it seems, took the ideas, and copied, to 
some extent, the phraseology into his own stanza ; and the similarity of sound in 
their names, as well as the similarity of the stanzas, has caused some confusion as 
to their respective poetical rights in this particular quatrain. 



EISTOBICAL APPENDIX. HJ 

And in that ilanor now no more 

Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball ; 
For ever since that dreary hour 

Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall. 

The village maids, with fearful glance, 

Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall ; 
Nor ever lead the merry dance, 

Among the groves of Cunmor Hall. 

Full many a traveller oft hath sighed 

And pensive wept the Countess' fall, 
As wandering onwards they "ve espied 

The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall. 



POEMS AND ESSAYS, 

BY 

G. DICKINSON. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 



"Poems and Essays, by G. Dickinson. This is a very pretty volume, with 

contents of varied character and interest The author's 

own poems have a pure and harmonious ring, and in making his selections 
for example and illustration he has given us the best work of the best work- 
ers. It is, however, as an essayist that he shows the best, and his thoughtful, 
comprehensive contributions in this line are very instructive and entertain- 
ing. The volume, as a whole, is pure and elevated in tone, and perfect in 
detail." ' Boston Post. 

" It is a well printed volume of 225 pages, in which the reader will find 
good and pleasant poetry. We can quote only one or two extracts. . . . 
There is a poem of 20 stanzas on Memories of Childhood which we should 
like to quote, if our space allowed." The Daily Spy. Worcester^ A/ass. 

" The two essays, Minstrels and ^Minstrelsy of the Middle Ages and Early 
Ballad-Poetry, will be read with interest by lovers of old English literature. 
Many of the poems have already seen the light in different journals, and 
represent not only the different stages of poetic development through which 
the writer has passed, but also the various moods of his poetic experience." 

Boston Transcript. 

'' This volume opens with an eight-page ode on the death of Garfield, evi- 
dently written when, at the death of the chief, strong expressions were common. 
As an historical souvenir, this piece is not without value. There follows it 
an essay on Minstrels and Minstrelsy of the ^Middle Ages, that is well 

worthy of perusal and study Then comes another 

excellent essay on ' Early Ballad-Poetry of Different Nations." After a poem 
with historical notes on Kenilworth come some capital poems which have ap- 



peared in the Boston Traveller, but are pleasant to see again. A large number 
of other poems follow, of varying merits, but abounding in stirring passages 
and full of worthy suggestions. In many of them one reads between the 
lines things which may or may not have been in the poet's mind, but which 
render this volume a pleasant and useful one to have at hand." 

The Vox Poptcli, Lowell, Mass. 

" Poems and Essaj-s, by G. Dickinson, is another bid for the poet's fame, 
and the author shows large poetic feeling and skill in verse. The subjects 
are handled in a pleasant and interesting way, and the themes have music 

and sweet associations. The translations are very good 

Quite often a poetic nature can put forth more power in prose than in verse, 
— at least here is an illustration, for the style is clear, forcible, and full of 
interest." Boston Commonu!ealth. 

" The volume includes a number of what the author terms early or juvenile 
poems, which possess unusual interest as such, and show the talent of the 
writer at an early period. The poem dedicated to Henry W. Longfellow 
on the occasion of his 75th birthday is particularly fine. It was scarcely a 
month after it was written that the great poet passed away, and the verse be- 
came singularly appropriate. Accompanying the poems are several essays 
bearing directly upon the subject of the verses. The description of Early 
Ballad-Poetry of Different Nations shows deep research, and the many ap- 
propriate extracts with which the text is illustrated show that the author has 
read extensively and carefully. As a whole, the work shows painstaking care, 
and will give pleasure to many a reader who appreciates works of character 
in these times when literature is the most careless of all modern professions." 

Milford Gazette. 

" Mr. Dickinson's poems are creditable to the author, and will be pleasing 
not only to his friends but to many readers. Good sentiment, in fair versifi- 
cation, is expressed in all the poems, while a praiseworthy ambition to court 

a closer acquaintance with the Muse is everywhere manifest 

The essay on Minstrels and Minstrelsy of the Middle Ages contains good 
reading." Boston Sunday Globe. 

" To judge from the worth of the book its sale will be large, as every lover 
of art must needs have a copy." T/ie Co/n/endhon. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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